"Can you make .... ?"

Levi loves to build things out of anything he can get his hands on. He has made "alien spaceships" out of a paper plate with a bowl taped to the top; he has rockets hanging from his ceiling made from rolled up paper; yesterday he made mouse "poison" out of sawdust, water, grass, some sand -- just put materials in a zip-lock sandwich bag, close, and shake. A couple of weeks ago, he ran upstairs calling "Daddy, Daddy, come downstairs. Come ... come downstairs." As I started down the stairs he said "Close your eyes" which is always exciting to do when you are walking down stairs. Also, when he says this, it can be either good news or not; many times he wants you to close your eyes so you don't see the mess he has made. Luckily, when I finally was told to open my eyes, with a grand 'TA-DA!' Levi present this creation out of pretzels and marshmallows - a rocket ship flying to the moon.

Other easy creations from Levi's mind include various Tinker-toy(r) creations. At the left is one an airplane that is able to shoot at you from the front, back, or sides. He's also made various rockets, but he always gets upset when it launches and the bottom falls off, or when the rocket starts to go into orbit and the nose falls off.

These are the easy ones because Levi is pretty self-sufficient and adept at using his mind to create what he wants. But when he comes up to Denise or me and says "Can you make ..." then the fun for the parents really begins.

Take the instance of the "Tree-branch and jean blanket Tee-pee" that Lucy and Levi are huddling in. It all started one rainy Saturday when I went out to trim a tree out front. For the last two years this tree has been infested by Japanese beetles, so I decided to trim the tree way back to make it easier to spray (we've resorted to leaning out Anders' 2nd story bedroom window to get the top of the tree).

Levi, who loves Winnie Pooh movies, decides he wants to build an Eeyore "house" out of sticks. Problem is the sticks from this tree are pretty poky. Adding to his misery was the light rain that started to fall. Dad decides to come to his sons rescue by building a tee-pee. First, I had to spend 30 minutes to cut off all the little branches to make the stick somewhat smoother. Then thanks to Lucy, I was able to lash the "poles" together with a length of green yarn. Levi started stacking up the excess branches, but quickly stopped since he was getting poked and caught. What to do? I find an old jean blanket (made out of old jeans, duh) and drape it around the sticks. Viola! Levi and Lucy have a tee-pee with about 45 minutes of work by dad. They loved it so much, somehow they talked their mother into moving it into the house where it still stands 3 weeks later.

Now, a 60 minute project is not all that bad. But Levi likes his dad to build him airplanes: paper airplanes (1 minute); Fokker Dr.I triplane made out of wood (3 days - a nail gun does wonders to speed up the process) to 3 week projects such as the F4U Corsair (blue plane) that Levi gave to me as a "present" for my birthday in 2009, or the AV-8B Harrier -- plastic models that he enjoys flying. It's truly a test of both his and my patience: his, because he so badly wants to get to the paint and play stage and mine, because every 10 minutes of "is it dry yet?" or the disappearing/reappearing plane parts over 3 weeks makes for a very long journey. But any aggravation I might feel quickly disappears when you see the joy of a 4-year-old who is now flying a plane he has helped to glue, paint and put stickers on.

PS: To make plastic models durable for little guys, nothing beats a good dose of hot glue to affix landing gears, rockets, bombs, canopies, wings, propellers and any other part that may come loose during use.