Ben's Fort and Restaurant

Ben has been very busy lately, setting up a fort and a restaurant in his room. The fort came first, set up in the corner behind his reading chair.

Some of the indispensible treasures Ben put in his fort: Five dice, clothes and socks, reading material, a map of the fort, some cars and trains, a rock collection, blankets, pillows, and colored pencils.

The fort with its sign welcoming friends.

The sign on our play kitchen, a.k.a, the restaurant. He wrote the first line of letters himself and then I told him how to spell "restaurant."

The little table is set up next to the restaurant as a combination door and serving area. I had a delicious meal comprised of a chicken sandwich, mashed potatoes and gravy, lemonade, and chocolate cake at Chez Ben. I love that he's having so much fun being creative. If you need a cheap (imaginary) meal, come on over to our house!

What have your kids done that has surprised you with their creativity? Or what fun and creative things did you do when you were little?

I feel like I don't have much of an imagination and am not great at "playing" on a kid level, so it always amazes me to see what they come up with. I don't have any vivid memories of concocting elaborate games or pictures like Ben, or playing lots of make believe. I do recall that when I was four or five, my older sister Nanette organized "school" for me and my younger brother. She was called "Mrs. White" and sat us down in our bedroom where we used little filing boxes as desks while she molded our young minds. At our house in Oregon we did use our old spider-infested shed as a clubhouse and when we moved to Washington we dubbed the crawl space under the stairs the "laboratory," where we played amidst our mom's canning jars, spare boxes, and wrapping paper. Now that I'm thinking about it, Nanette and I also had fun playing paper dolls and coloring together (she was my coloring idol), so I guess we weren't that boring after all.