At one point today we were outside cleaning up the limb debris that was scattered across our driveway (one of the many dead limbs that hang precariously from our many trees just couldn't hang on any more). As we began to clear away some of the little branches, I told Aidan about a time when I was about 10 or so and a ginormous tree fell in a neighbor's backyard. Thankfully, it did not do any damage to anyone's house or other property. It just managed to fall right square in the middle of the long backyard. Well, as I mentioned, this tree was huge and because of its large and numerous limbs it made quite the natural playground when sprawled prostrate across the grass. My friend Jenny Streck and I played on that tree for days. I'm not sure exactly what all we imagined that tree to be but I'm pretty sure at some point we were supposed to be forest fairies or elves or something else of the like and I just remember it being magical. Well, my Aidan just thought this was the greatest story and I could just see his little mind turning those images over and over in his head. Sure enough, a moment later he emerged with his beloved sock monkey, Bobo, and proceeded to hang him from the limbs and carve out a little house for him. Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of leaving our big limb there for him with which to play. Remember, it was in our driveway, which, by the way, I failed to mention, fell to the ground during the few moments of yesterday when no cars or kids were in its path! Thank you, God! And yes, we do have someone coming to take care of our poor trees--this limb just couldn't hold out. Anyway, when he realized that he couldn't build a tree house for Bobo, his next brainstorm was to build a fire with all the dead wood. Nice use of resources, little man. I explained to him that he couldn't set a real fire in our yard due to the drought, lack of a suitable place for a fire, and because we've already tried it before and had the fire department arrive on the scene. I told him that he could go ahead and build up a campfire and pretend to light it and, amazingly, that satisfied him. The picture above is his creation. I was very impressed with the nice rock fire ring that he built first. Oh well, a boy can wish.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Some wishful thinking
At one point today we were outside cleaning up the limb debris that was scattered across our driveway (one of the many dead limbs that hang precariously from our many trees just couldn't hang on any more). As we began to clear away some of the little branches, I told Aidan about a time when I was about 10 or so and a ginormous tree fell in a neighbor's backyard. Thankfully, it did not do any damage to anyone's house or other property. It just managed to fall right square in the middle of the long backyard. Well, as I mentioned, this tree was huge and because of its large and numerous limbs it made quite the natural playground when sprawled prostrate across the grass. My friend Jenny Streck and I played on that tree for days. I'm not sure exactly what all we imagined that tree to be but I'm pretty sure at some point we were supposed to be forest fairies or elves or something else of the like and I just remember it being magical. Well, my Aidan just thought this was the greatest story and I could just see his little mind turning those images over and over in his head. Sure enough, a moment later he emerged with his beloved sock monkey, Bobo, and proceeded to hang him from the limbs and carve out a little house for him. Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of leaving our big limb there for him with which to play. Remember, it was in our driveway, which, by the way, I failed to mention, fell to the ground during the few moments of yesterday when no cars or kids were in its path! Thank you, God! And yes, we do have someone coming to take care of our poor trees--this limb just couldn't hold out. Anyway, when he realized that he couldn't build a tree house for Bobo, his next brainstorm was to build a fire with all the dead wood. Nice use of resources, little man. I explained to him that he couldn't set a real fire in our yard due to the drought, lack of a suitable place for a fire, and because we've already tried it before and had the fire department arrive on the scene. I told him that he could go ahead and build up a campfire and pretend to light it and, amazingly, that satisfied him. The picture above is his creation. I was very impressed with the nice rock fire ring that he built first. Oh well, a boy can wish.
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