building forts

When I was a kid, I LOVED to make forts. Not fancy wood forts outside, or treehouses up in the branches, but rather detailed engineering marvels carefully assembled from couch cushions, pillows, blankets, and heavy books to hold everything in place. We'd strategically place our building "materials" between the coffee table and chairs and end up with the perfect hiding place. You know the kind I'm talking about, right? The ones you'd always make when you had a friend come over to spend the night?

It was even better when you added flashlights and some goodies from the kitchen (i.e. a bag of chips or a few stolen cookies from the cookie jar). We'd always start out planning to stay up all night, but usually ended up cratering around mignight. And then on Saturday morning, you had a nice comfy pile to lounge around on while watching cartoons. Ah. Great times.

Over the past few days, Big A has started to show interest in this time-honored tradition of childhood, and it's cracking me up. Except he calls it his "house." I'm really having to hold myself back from dragging out a bunch more of stuff from the linen closet ... to really add to his meager little structure. But right now, he's content with 2 of the big couch cushions -- one propped up between the coffee table and the couch, acting as a back wall, and the other lying on top, acting as a roof. HE LOVES IT. He crawls under there and says, "Mommy! Come see me!"

It's fun watching the pieces of my childhood appear in his. Makes me smile at the most unexpected times -- thank goodness. :)