So, a few nights ago, I promised the kids that I would teach them how to make a fort. After dinner, we gathered up all of the blankets, pillows, and chairs from the dining room and began our mission. Fort making was actually much more difficult than I remember. We had a couple of close calls when a chair fell on Davis because I had faced it the wrong way, but fortunately, neither of the incidents left a mark.
From the moment the first blanket was draped over the furniture, Davis was like a broken record…The fork was ready, he’d say. Can he stand on the fork? Can he sit in the fork? Can I read to him in fork? He just wanted me to get in the FORK with him…immediately. And at times like that, it doesn’t matter how many times I insist that it’s a FORT, not a FORK. He is always right. I don’t know where he gets his confidence from about the English language, but he seriously thinks he’s a tenured professor or something. It doesn’t matter that we’ve been alive for a quarter of a century longer than him…to him it just means we’ve been saying it wrong all that time. We should all be thankful someone has finally corrected us.
Hayden, on the other hand, would not enter the fort for about an hour. He just kept examining it from the outside. With his hands on his hips, he would look at it intently, and proclaim, “We need more details.” He would then proceed to find every small toy he could lay his hands on, and throw them inside fort (which already felt MUCH smaller than I remember). When he ran out of toys downstairs, he began to make several trips upstairs, each time coming down with a load of stuff animals, and other what-nots. He would pull back the large pillow door and recklessly throw in the toys. Then he would take two steps back, re-examine the fort, and still insist again that WE NEED MORE DETAILS! I have no idea where the concept of details came from, but by his fifth trip upstairs, I had to put an end to it.
HAYDEN - - - ENOUGH DETAILS! IF YOU PUT ONE MORE TOY IN THIS FORT, WE ARE TEARING IT DOWN. GET IN THE FORT NOW! WE ARE GOING TO READ A BOOK AND WE ARE GOING TO HAVE FUN!
He sensed my seriousness and climbed in. Sometimes we all just need a little reminding when something is fun. And that’s what moms are for.
From the moment the first blanket was draped over the furniture, Davis was like a broken record…The fork was ready, he’d say. Can he stand on the fork? Can he sit in the fork? Can I read to him in fork? He just wanted me to get in the FORK with him…immediately. And at times like that, it doesn’t matter how many times I insist that it’s a FORT, not a FORK. He is always right. I don’t know where he gets his confidence from about the English language, but he seriously thinks he’s a tenured professor or something. It doesn’t matter that we’ve been alive for a quarter of a century longer than him…to him it just means we’ve been saying it wrong all that time. We should all be thankful someone has finally corrected us.
Hayden, on the other hand, would not enter the fort for about an hour. He just kept examining it from the outside. With his hands on his hips, he would look at it intently, and proclaim, “We need more details.” He would then proceed to find every small toy he could lay his hands on, and throw them inside fort (which already felt MUCH smaller than I remember). When he ran out of toys downstairs, he began to make several trips upstairs, each time coming down with a load of stuff animals, and other what-nots. He would pull back the large pillow door and recklessly throw in the toys. Then he would take two steps back, re-examine the fort, and still insist again that WE NEED MORE DETAILS! I have no idea where the concept of details came from, but by his fifth trip upstairs, I had to put an end to it.HAYDEN - - - ENOUGH DETAILS! IF YOU PUT ONE MORE TOY IN THIS FORT, WE ARE TEARING IT DOWN. GET IN THE FORT NOW! WE ARE GOING TO READ A BOOK AND WE ARE GOING TO HAVE FUN!
He sensed my seriousness and climbed in. Sometimes we all just need a little reminding when something is fun. And that’s what moms are for.
No comments:
Post a Comment