Forts

Our boys love to build forts, inside and outside.  It's become a daily activity and it drives me nuts because of the mess it makes and the stress level it creates (namely for Asa, who doesn't understand if a certain couch cushion needs to go anywhere else than he deems fit, and who goes into hysterics if/when cushions inevitably fall off the couch), yet they love this activity and beg to make forts all the time.

Eli is much more patient with the process, and much more diligent than I am to make really cool forts.  I will put all the couch cushions in place and throw a couple blankets on top, but Eli will pull the chair over too and add more blankets and create separate spaces for each boy within the fort and throw in a skylight just for fun.  So, obviously, they particularly love when Daddy is home for lunch or before bedtime to offer his fort-building prowess!

At the very least, these boys love to throw the couch cushions around because, apparently, couch cushions that stay in place are not using their full potential!

So I've resigned myself to the constant fort-building that happens around here, even though it drives me nuts.  It drives me nuts because you can probably imagine who has to pick up every fort and put everything back where it belongs :)  Even Caleb isn't quite able to pick up all the cushions and lift them back into place, and obviously Kai and Asa are of little help.  So it falls to me.  Every time.  And I am practicing patience :)

As opposed to the inside forts, I love it when they build forts outside.  They usually work together and haul branches and sticks and leaves from all over the compound, and they're quite creative.  For a long time they made attempts to build a treehouse like the one on Swiss Family Robinson, but now they mostly build regular forts.  This was their most recent creation, and I was quite proud because they did it completely by themselves and were able to crawl inside:

In truth, I hope the fort-building phase lasts a long time.  It's such an iconic little-kid thing to do.  And they are usually so proud of themselves.  Furthermore, in the midst of building this particular fort, Caleb declared to me, "Mom, look!  We're working together as a team!"  In other words, life skills were happening.  And I was beaming :)

(Kai escaped from the fort before I could snap a photo of him too.)