Nesting

My daughter nests.

She's driven by some terrible maternal force deep inside to create little living spaces in any nook or cranny she finds vacant.

In our house, she creates places like "Fairy World" or "Horse Land" with old check boxes, found string, broken toys, and books for her little dolls to live in.  I've seen her make a waterfall that puddled on the floor from two old blue play dresses, where her horse toys would frolic and play.  She swipes things from around the house to use and it's generally very ingenious, so I have a hard time getting after her for using something like the ice cream scoop as a catapult for fairies.

This spring, we've found evidence of nests built around the yard before the snow covered them....little piles of what look like trash and junk to mere mortal eyes, but in actuality are treasures and castles to anyone 5 years old and younger observing the same thing. 

"Oh! There's "Mermaid World"!", she'll exclaim, falling on her knees next to a couple of empty water bottles and my garden trowel. And she'll proceed to explain every little nuance of the place and invite me to join her in that mystical place, long covered by the blanket of winter.

She always invites adults to kneel down and enter her worlds, even though we are short-sighted and practical.  As she describes the functions and reasons for the placement of each little piece of flotsam and jetsam, it's entirely possible (if one lets go of thier horrible urge to clean or file) to see through her eyes and slip into that place for a while.

Last night, she was a dinosaur and built a nest with eggs up in our tree row.  (It was tricky, trying to decide what sort of dinosaur to be, incidentally, because she adores steak, so a carnivore was what she wanted to be. However, carnivores are not very well behaved, as a rule, and she was trying to be a good, kind dinosaur.)  We had to go look at it and coo over how well made it was and what beautiful eggs she had.  There was great distress when sleeping in the nest overnight was ruled out as an option.

Her little brother is the anti-nester.

His job is to come in and demand his toys back; toys that have not been seen nor heard from since he was 1 1/2 years old. Or he crashes through the nests and worlds with all the determination and flair of a D6 Cat, evoking wails and pounding of fists upon his back.  He's contrary.  If she tells him that the cardboard leaned up against the brick is a slide for dinosaurs, he'll insist that no, it's a pirate house. (Or vise versa) Brothers are seldom asked to attend functions in "Dragon World", for obvious reasons.

We've gotten used to living with a magpie.

But when you come for a visit and see little piles of assorted nonsense in funny corners of our yard and house, now you know about the nests.  And I can assure you that within 15 minutes of arriving, you'll be invited with great excitement to come to see a castle or hideout or stable....

You'll need to put on your magic spectacles and slow down for a little bit....

Wondrous little worlds await you in those odd nests....