under construction

I am a father "under construction".  You know, a work in progress.  Do you remember when you were a kid and used to build things like forts...indoors and outdoors?  You spent hours being entertained by this.  Well, one of the coolest things your children do is the same thing you used to do.  I am totally amazed when my 10 year old daughter takes the most random things from around the house to build with.  What an awesome expression of her own unique and personal creativity!  I love it when she builds forts because I can really relate to that back when I was a young boy.  Here's the problem...unfortunately, now that I am a "grownup" and have become responsible (boring?), I am a neat freak and I am constantly biting my tongue to not yell at her for making a mess of things.  Why?  Because she usually chooses the main living areas of the home to do her building...blocking off all ingress and egress (oh, shoot...there I go again, being a grownup!).  Anyway, you know she just makes the room totally inaccessible for the rest of the family.  But even though she does, WOW, how cool are her forts!

Sometimes I really have a hard time when she does these things.  What I keep telling myself is these are good things.  After all, don't they allow her to express the creative talents God gave her?  Who cares about a messy house anyway (keep telling yourself that, over and over and over and over and over...)?  When she goes inside her fort, she enters a world that is her world...the ultimate in make believe where anything is possible.  I really am thrilled that she is using her mind to do something resourceful rather than vegging out in front of the boob tube or playing on the computer.  I know I need to encourage this!  To my wife's credit, she let's our girls do these kinds of things all the time.  She clearly sees the big picture way better than me!  I'm the one that struggles with it.  

My struggle isn't only with the mess, though.  When I was a boy, I was taught not only to respect the property of others, but also to take care of my own stuff.  That's a good thing, right?  So when I see our sofa pillows, blankets, pillows and comforters off of our beds, rubberbands to hold things in place, and any other miscellaneous thing she can find, I really have a hard time not getting irritated.  Where do I draw the line between teaching them to be creative and have fun and yet still take care of the material things we have been blessed with?  It really is a great opportunity to teach them to be good stewards over all they have been given.  If nothing else, they learn how to take care of other people's things in the process.  However, I always have to remind myself when I am getting ready to jump all over them that THEY are way more important than all the stuff in the world...even the stuff in MY world.  At the end of the day, it's all just junk.  But dog gone it, it's MY junk.  As I said, I'm clearly still under construction! 

Anyway, back to the building thing.  My precious daughter is quite amazing and very creative.  The best part is when she is all done and invites me to play with her in her new fort.  It's like entering a whole new world with no worries and only the two (or three or four...well, you get it) of you.  You never know what you might find.  Who knows maybe she will be an architect someday...or maybe she'll just learn to be a really great mommy to her kids when they want to create something in their home.  So for now, I write this as a reminder to myself to let my girls be girls...they grow up sooooooooo fast!  Guys, build those forts with them and play with them.  Enter their world...it is guaranteed to keep you young forever.  And remember, just for a little while...forget about the mess!   

As I am writing this blog at this very moment, my daughter is building a fort...in my office.   Looks like I will have to go through her fantasy world ("the fort") to get out on the other side.  Hey wait a minute, where'd she go?  Oh my goodness...she has already moved on to other adventures.  Man are they hard to keep up with!  How the heck am I going to get out of here?   It's alright, I know I can do this.  Okay, I just need to go in this door and crawl down this passageway and...wow, it's really amazing in here.  How cool!  Wait a minute, is it this way or that way?  Oh no, I think I'm lost!  Hey, is anyone out there?  Honey, are you out there?  Daddy really wants out of here.  Help!