My Life in Forts and Bugs

I have nature lovers - especially Ciaran. It is a passion we have tried to build into them but one of the unforseen consequences of this is lots of creepy crawly and slimy things. We have drawn the line on keeping them as pets at this point because I don't want to feed frogs live crickets. When he is old enough to care for them himself then we will talk about it again. So for now we have lots of patience for little critters that come visit and then head back to nature. For his birthday he got this great gift that facillitates this process. The bug vacuum works pretty well, is easy to use and provides lots of fun for kids plus they want to clean up the bugs around the house. My rule is they must release them outside. We have brought two spiders outside just this morning. Maybe the box elders and ladybugs have met their match this season. We will see.

The other half of the title of this post is forts. I am a patient mom when it comes to loss of my living room and couch spaces. We very often have large colorful blankets, pillows and an assortment of odds and ends holding them up over our couches, chairs, stools and whatever else they can find. Whole room sized forts with multiple compartments and individual spaces are preferable to just small one blanket forts. The current fort has 6 blankets in use - we are talking big afghans. One which was designed and crocheted by me to reach from one end of the room to the other. The others are all queen size blankets or quilts. While there is some overlap you can imagine how big the fort is.

Bugs and forts. I would never have thought I would enjoy and embrace them the way I have. But they lead to happy creative kids and this is what being a kid is all about. Someday I will miss the forts and the creepy crawly things that come in. My couches will all be neat and orderly and there won't be a million books falling all over the place (okay maybe there still will be too many books) and I will miss this. So I embrace it and enjoy it and live my life in forts and bugs with a smile :) Enjoy whatever your forts and bugs are today.

Peace,
Tenniel