Friday 4 April 2008

Camping Indoors

This is the other thing my boys like to do in our room.

"Mommy/ Daddy, please built me a tent, " Micah would call out while we are busy on the computer, or after doing something else together.
"Build tent!" Max would echo.

So this is how the tent look like from outside:



And this is the tent inside.


To make the tent:
1. Stack up pillows 2-3 feet from the bed-head.
2. Stuff a blanket behind the bed-head and pull it over stacked pillows.
* Option: if you have more pillows, you can put two stacks at an angle and lay a bolster across. Then you have a "back door", as the boys call it. That's the opening space you see in the picture above. The main entrane is actually on the right side.

Again, there had been a lot of pretend play, i.e.
"Come in! Lets hide from the bear!"
"It's raining... but we are safe."
"We are baby tigers. This is our nest. Rnouw!"

Max, again, would ask Mommy to join him inside.

Mommy: Ok. I'll come in. (Lies down, resting on her elbows, and sticks her head in.)
Max: No come in, Mommy. feet too.
Mommy: There's no space, Max. See... (Points all around to show him there is actually no more space.)
Max: OK. Want nan-nan now.
Mommy: here? but it's so hot under the covers.
Max: nan-nan now. Baby kitty wants nan-nan now, ok? Meew..meeww...
Mommy: OK.. (changes position. Now she looks like the lady in a box in a magic show about to be sawed into two.)

The only thing that can sometimes be exhausting is when they boys love to jump on the tent and "crash" it and ask you to build it again. The worst part of the crashing is that it'll be done by one boy, leaving the other screaming and then when you've fixed it, the other one now crashes it in "revenge". So it then becomes a tent crashing competition...

Tiring. Not so much the building and rebuilding of the tent,
but the coaxing and scolding and shouting and nagging and reasoning.
Emotionally exhausting.

3 comments:

Ann said...

hahaha...it sounds so much fun, wish I can jump too!

hahaha....ask the obys to build it and YOU JUMP! maybe they will find joy in creating the tent too! :)

Can I jump, can I jump?

JLow said...

Picking up just on your last 2 words in the blog- I truly relate to that.

When the 3 yr-old "why?" questions gets too complicated, I admit I do sometimes just forego the whole mental checklist of:
- where would my answer lead
- is my answer going to enrich her quest to understand the universe
- is it going to implicate anyone
- is it going to warp the truth
- will this answer be ingrained in her head for life
- is she mature enough to understand the nature of th truth...

... I'd just go "Daddee doesn't dunno..." and give up on my own quest to be the smartest dad in the world...

Moomykin said...

ann,

Jump all you want, then you can fix it up again. :) That's what I'm trying to get Micah to do. Hahaha...



--------


jlow,

I use that now and then, "I don't know," and give Micah a whole string of maybe's and maybe confuse him a bit. hahaha... But I think he does realise some things could just have a million possibilities as an answer. So there.