Saturday Forts

When I was growing up,
my mom allowed me to make a ritual out of devastating the couch in the living room
to create a fort each Saturday morning. 

I looked forward to Saturdays,
plotting and planning how I may improve on last week's fort.
 Once I had all the cushions off the couch, I could use them to make walls, toss blankets over them,
and have a cave, a house, a tree fort, or whatever habitation my active imagination could dream up. 

Fond memories. 

The kind I would like my own children to have.  

So although I love a beautiful and clean home,
 I indulge the allowance for a fort, providing it does get picked up by the end of the day.

When I was pregnant with baby # 4, I had very bad morning sickness. 

One particularly difficult morning,
I offered the children the opportunity to make a fort in the front room of our little farm house. 
They showed all the creativity I ever did, times 3, taking up the entire room.
  At around 11 am they were still in their jammies, as was I, with a HUGE mess and having a ball,
when someone knocked on the front door. 
As I was too ill to get up, John, then 7, answered the door. 

The shocked visitor, wide eyed looking around asked, "Why aren't you kids in school?" 
To which John proudly exclaimed, "Oh, we are home schooled!"

 I was mortified, but as John explained that I was sick,

the caller said he would come back. 

It was a while before I let that happen, at that time of day,
in the front room again! 

LOL!

Now that we have a big house, the children are free to engage in fort building

 at any time they are not doing school. 
The little ones need help, of course,

and their big sisters are almost always obliging.

The boys are very capable of making their own disaster, inspiring the younger ones.

I believe this is some of the most fun play there is, especially in bad weather.

It does look pretty fun, and if I thought I could get up afterward,

I might just crawl in there myself.