A Labor of Love

I love to "knock stuff out"! I'm not referring to going Muhammad Ali on someone. I love to get stuff done, even if it requires ignoring everything else. I guess I'm a stereotypical "guy" in that sense. My knock-it-out tendency came out big time while I built my kids a backyard play fort a couple of weeks ago. I did eventually finish it, but much patience was required and interruptions, of course...lots of interruptions to clean boo boos, get water, get Dora Band-Aids for boo boos, potty breaks, diaper changes, feedings, and snuggles after Dora Band Aids for boo boos were applied. Whew. My kids taught me/reminded me that nothing great was ever built in a day, and in my case, 7 days and still counting (I'm still putting on the final "touches").

I had to continually remind myself, particularly when I was feeling exasperated from being interrupted for the millionth time, who I was building the fort for. Was it for me? To satisfy my own personal carpentry goal? Or was the purpose to gratify the desires of my kids' hearts and to provide some moments of peace for their mother? Oh, yeah, that's right...it was about them!

Now, rather than climb on our furniture and hang on our house's door handles, my little squirrels get to climb and play to their hearts' content on this...

 

Granted, I had a blast busting out the power tools and going Jesus on this thing, even if my hand looked a little beat up 150+ screws later...

Although, I'm not sure if Jesus had access to a Ryobi hand saw. Nevertheless, every time my daughters broke my concentration and needed something or when Eden wanted to be my "special helper" or when Avery wanted to pretend to hammer something, it brought me back to what the heart of this project was all about: connecting and bonding with my kids and blessing them with an experience with their daddy that hopefully they will never forget.