The Lego Artist

When my children were youngsters they loved to play with Legos. Sometimes we weren't so good about cleaning up the Lego mess afterwards; to my husband's frustration, quite a few ended up in the vaccum cleaner!!!  I'm sure many of you are familiar with the horrible clang of a Lego being inhaled by the vaccum cleaner!
 While all our kiddos played with Legos, none showed the promise to become a Lego artist like Zachary. What makes this even more remarkable is that Zachary has severe athetoid cerebral palsy. Athetoid cerebral palsy causes a person to move with jerky, uncontrolled movements. Affected persons have difficulty smoothly coordinating the movements of their hands, legs, head and facial muscles. Just because a person with athetoid cerebral palsy has difficulty with movement, however, does not necessarily indicate they have cognitive difficulty. While Zachary is quite smart, you can imagine the focus he requires to hold his hands still enough to tackle even a simple Lego construction project!
Zachary's Lego journey began like any other......getting a tub of Legos for birthdays and Christmas. Then, as he started making small houses with cute little Lego flower beds, he asked for more Legos to finish a certain project he was working on. Then....he wanted more and more Legos. Legos are EXPENSIVE!!! So, I started looking for Legos at garage sales and whatnot. As the years went by, Zachary amassed quite a collection of Legos. His skill at building finely detailed structures became more polished.
Eventually, Zach's art collection required its' own showcase. Only the big yellow truck on the bottom shelf is from a kit. All the rest are originals........Good Work, Zachary!!