Akiva remembered the time I bricked up the doorway.
That was back when the current master bedroom was still the playroom.
The children could come and go as they pleased, but for me it was a squeeze.
“I want to do it again,” he said.
“But we have to have a bigger door,” I replied.
We made the door bigger, but still it was not big enough.
I prefer adult-sized doors.
The wall came down later in the day.
Akiva loves to play with his cars on the back of the couch in front of the north window in the library.
He explains to me that it is because this couch has roads.
Whatever these cars are up to, I suspect that it is something that should definitely not be done on a road.
CRASH! BAM!
To celebrate the arrival of the Pestalotiopsis monster into the family, we had a tea party.
Iris brought Peggy, Napua, and Rethabile.
Akiva brought Hymie, Pest (who sometimes accidentally sits on his tail), and the Lego Monster.
Pest was not at all happy with mere tea, so Akiva cooked him up a big skillet of stuff.
…waiting for the stuff to finish cooking…
…almost done now!
Hymie & the girls drank tea.
Pest had a bit of everything.
We didn’t serve the Lego Monster because he only eats people and we don’t serve people at tea!
Setting: Moderately messy playroom.
Children seem to be distracted from play due to the presence of their father.
The father is focused on his work— a block sculpture— and appears to take little notice of the children.
Because he did not play with blocks enough as a child, he has trouble getting them to balance.
Fortunately, that does not deter him.
Determined to make up for lost time, he begins again each time they fall.
Finally we have it: a French-man with a full belly.
Egg, orange, peach, banana. Toast, fish, strawberry, apple.
The children return to their play.
Akiva and I have been having fun playing with geometric wooden pattern blocks together.
He says we need more.
There was an argument. I bricked up the doorway and told them they would need to solve their own problems. Immediately, the problem was solved, but the bricks remained. Now when they argue inside, I say, “I can take down the wall or you can solve the problem yourself.” For now, they like the wall.
I enjoy my key-hole view of a place reserved exclusively for children.
“I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up.
Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones.
For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!”
— Edgar Allen Poe, The Cask of Amantillado
Akiva asked Martin to play with blocks. Martin wanted to build something new: I started building parking garages for Akiva’s cars a few years ago, & although it’s not getting old for Akiva, who is four, Martin who is 48, is a bit more ambitious. He took out his phone for inspiration. A few hours later, one engine and one coal car stood on a slightly-elevated track at a train station. Fantastic!
The engineer climbs into the engine.
The rest of the people get off the orange bus. They wait to board the platform.
Slowly, slowly they climb a great staircase where one single rise is higher than their shoulder.
The people at the top of the platform mill about,
discussing where they will sit.
“There is an engine and a coal car,” one person says.
“The engineer won’t let us ride with him, and the conductor won’t let us ride in the coal car!”
“Where does this train go, anyway?” says another person.
An angry mob debarks the platform. One person is trampled in the rush.
Infuriated by the inconvenience, they storm back to their bus.
Still, the train waits at the station. Where does this train go?
