Forts

These photos are from playing in a pillow fort the other day. We had a pile of balloons left over from a baby shower we hosted, and Henry set up a pillow fort with a cache of balloons as ammo. At first he tried to keep Agatha away, but when I reminded him about Santa watching him, he thought a moment and then pulled the blocking pillow aside and said, "Come on in, Agatha!" It might have been the first time the children were on the same team, laughing and playing a game "against" me. I kept popping up and surprising them and pelting them with balloons and they were both screaming with laughter. Sweet, sweet, sweet!

More commonly, Henry is outside in his fort with the boys. Tonight he came home from school and went straight out to their yard. I only saw him when he came in on quests for various materials: "Mom! I need a pillow and a blanket!" or "Is there a light I can have and not give back?" Or, "Mom! Can I PLEASE go to the blue dumpster with Carter?" This is their latest adventure: they run around the corner to the house that's being renovated and liberate building materials for their forts.

I went out to check on them around dusk and one boy was in a cardboard box outfitted with an LED light high up on a stair landing, the other boy was in the tree doing his homework in the descending twilight and Henry's head was just visible as he sat in his newest "fort" between two overturned kayaks and the neighbor's picket fence. When he came in looking for something and it was past dark, I was trying to entice him to sit and eat his peanut noodles, but he said, "Can you hold my plate for me while I climb over the fence?" He has learned the hard way that it is hard to climb over while carrying a plate of food. So I did. He ran ahead of me, saying to the boys next door, "I just got a bungee cord. And I'm going to eat my dinner in my fort!" One of them said, "Cool!"

A few minutes later he came in and announced that he was setting up for his party and it would start in four minutes. We went out and he had bowls of dried fruits and nuts and candied papaya set out on their little table, carefully lit with a flashlight tied in a tree branch above.