The day was yesterday. The time was mid morning after our son went down for a nap. My wife and I had just started cleaning up the house, organizing the mess from our second Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, when lo and behold, there appeared a cardboard box in our kitchen that was destined for the recycling bin. OK, so the box didn't just appear in our kitchen, rather, my wife placed it there after removing it from its temporary home in our sun porch. It was simply time to get rid of the box. This wasn't just any old, normal sized cardboard box. Nope, it was a larger box that months ago held a car seat within its confines. Unlike some boxes these days that come in sections, this was one solid piece and fairly sturdy. After letting the box linger in our kitchen for a little bit and with me still struggling to keep my weary eyes open, I started studying the box. It was a little bit shorter than our son but fairly wide symmetrically. Almost instantaneously my mind went drifting back about 27 years to my youth and my time spent with Baba (my grandmother). While most memories from that time are a little hazy now, I have a handful that are still quite vivid and capable of being called up from the depths of my memory. One of those memories that I still remember almost clear as day is a cardboard house that Baba and I made together. The cardboard house that I had 27 years ago came from a refrigerator box (yes, refrigerators used to come in boxes). In the metamorphic process of turning that cardboard box into a house, we let no detail slip through the cracks. The door was cut nice and square into the side. We had a pitched roof complete with a faux chimney. There were double windows on either side and to complete it all, we drew and colored in bricks along the whole exterior so that what used to be a cardboard box took on the aura of a perfect little house suitable for a 3 year old. I absolutely loved it. Looking back now, I think I loved the process of building the house more than I actually loved playing in the house. I have more memories of coloring the bricks on the outside than I do of any activity I engaged in within the cardboard walls of the house.
That house was special, built with love, and obviously not meant to last. Yet, looking back now and at the continuously changing interests of a boy that age, it made more sense to build a house out of cardboard than it did for my parents to buy me one of those plastic houses you can play in. On top of that, I firmly believe that building a cardboard house fosters the use of creativity much more than any plastic house can ever do. Take a second a look at it from the perspective of a 3 year old. You have this enormous cardboard box, essentially a blank slate upon which to do almost anything you want, and all you need to do is figure out what you want out of it. So perhaps those decisions are a little advanced for a 3 year old and I am quite sure that I didn't make the decision to build a house out of the box, but watching a box being transformed from just a box into a house is quite the event for a boy that age. With a plastic house bought from the store, you know exactly what it will be and there is no potential for it to be anything other than a house. Yes, it requires creativity to figure out what you want to do with the house and how you want to play with it, but that is about the extent of it. So having a son that is fast approaching 14 months, I wanted to create something for him that would at least entertain him for a few days, maybe a few weeks. So standing in my kitchen yesterday morning, I decided that our son needed a smaller version of my cardboard house. Not having a vocabulary as yet and with no real attention span for creative activities lasting more than a few minutes, I took out my utility knife and blue painters tape (a stand in for duct tape yesterday) and got to house building. Mind you, this process of mine took place while my wife was running around doing other things. Yes, I decided to put all cleaning on hold and build a cardboard house. Yesterday, I kept it simple. There were no pitched roofs or chimneys being built. There were no bricks being drawn on the outside. But there was a door and windows. I figured this house would be his starter house, the one that needed work, and if need be we could find a bigger box later and build a more elaborate house.
So the first step of my process was to cut him a door for entry into his new castle. Three cuts, tape the edges, done. With the door cut, I proceeded to insert myself partway into the house (essentially just my head) and tape the loose flaps of cardboard on the top and bottom so that our son didn't get caught on them when entering or exiting. Once all loose cardboard was secure, I pulled my head out and began work on the windows. I decided that there should be one window per side on the remaining three sides of the box. With our son still pretty young and not attune to the necessary height that windows should be made at, I cut the windows at all different heights to add an element of fun. They were simple double windows, one cut down the middle and one on the top and bottom respectively to allow the windows to open. The windows were also rather small in size, big enough to open and peer through, but not quite big enough for our son to stick his head through (although it wouldn't surprise me if he tried). And with the last window cut, my work was done. With gathering my materials and the whole cutting process, I probably spent about 5 minutes on the house and spent a total of 0 dollars.
When our son woke up from his nap and first saw his new house, he didn't immediately know what to do with the house. It didn't take long for him to figure out he could crawl inside through the door, close it behind him with the little finger cut out I made, and play with toys inside. As he would throw toys out the windows, I would throw them back in a different one. What he really enjoyed though was playing a version of hide a seek with the windows. With him inside, I would open a window a peer through at him, occasionally reaching in to tickle him. He would giggle and squirm at which point I would close the window and move to a different side of the box and do the same thing. After a few times, he started picking up on a pattern that I was following as to which window I would go to next. Every so often I would throw a kink in, however, and go to a different window than he expected me to. As I peered in through the different window, I would see him opening up the one I should have been at and peering through. When I surprised him at a different window, the giggling and laughing continued. We did that periodically through the day yesterday and every time the game lasted for at least five minutes. I think I had just about as much fun as our son did with his new house except that I couldn't join him inside. In any case, I can't wait to find some other cardboard boxes and create additions and passageways that connect to this original house for him. Yes, I am reliving my childhood to a certain extent, but isn't that part of what parenting is all about, being able to place yourself in the shoes of your child and play with them on their level? I think it is and regardless of what anyone else says, I am still a child at heart and know how to let that inner child out. (If anyone sees me acting like a child, however, please kindly point it out to me, thanks)
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