67. I've always loved digging snow tunnels and building snow forts.
One evening late last week Alexander and I played outside after doing some shoveling. He wanted to climb the giant snow piles beside the driveway (what he called "mountains") so he could slide down them. He was having trouble getting up the steep hill, so I was lifting him up. But he's a do-it-yourselfer so I started to dig steps into the snow for him.
The steps quickly deteriorated into a ramp, and then that ramp opened up a "hallway" into the mountain, and it kind of got away from itself from there. We built a few turrets at the top, then I started digging a covered room for him. He kept insisting that we build a door. When I told him it wasn't easy making doors out of snow, he looked at me like I was an idiot and said: "Need door handle."
This past weekend while we were out in the yard, we decided to expand our little snow fort. I created a separate entrance to the fort and dug a tunnel from the one entrance to the other. I also poked a thin air hole into the side of the tunnel (beside he insisted that the tunnel have a window).
When we finished the fort we wanted to put up a sign to declare it as "Fort Alexander" -- Since we're pretty good at making signs together I thought we might go inside and make one, but didn't want to put a stop to the fresh air fun we were having. So we went into the storage space in the "attic" of the garage and pulled out the Halloween decoration of a skull with a sign that says: "Do Not Enter" -- "Spooky Guy!" Alexander said, delighted, when I told him that the spooky guy would protect his fort and keep people out while we were inside the house.
On Saturday the neighbour's kids came over and they all played, having a blast helping make snow bricks out of the recycle box, crawling through the tunnel and planting stick flags in the fort. "Kids next door!" he beamed that night as he was settling down for bed. "Tunnel. Fort. " And of course: "Spooky guy."
Oh yeah, this post was supposed to be about me and my childhood passion for building snow tunnels and snow forts. Well, it was. Because when Francine and I were going to bed, I was laying there and summing up my own day. "Did you see the cool fort Alexander and I created? I hope we get more snow because I make to make it bigger. Oh man, wait until next winter, when he gets bigger. We can maybe move some snow from around the side of the house and build a big spiral staircase and three more entrances. We need a bigger yard, I think." I think Francine fell asleep after about twenty minutes of me going on like this.
I suppose I never outgrew that passion and now I have this wonderful excuse in my two-year old for going outside and building them again.
4 comments:
ooooh, can i come if i bring a shovel???
wow that is alot of snow in terms from where I come LOL
You always amaze me with your relationship with your son :)
Lime - you're certainly welcome, but we have plenty of shovels. Bring some hot chocolate and marshmellows! :)
Ameratis - I'd offer to ship some genuine Canadian snow down to you, but last time I tried that with a friend in Texas, it melted half-way there. Sigh.
You would have been in heaven in St. John's. The white stuff is piled up at least 8 feet at the roadsides.
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