For two days last week, my son went to work with my husband.

If you take a boy to a job site, he’s going to need to build something, right? It’s just logical.

My husband had brought home some of the scrap lumber from the house they were tearing down, so my son decided to build a fort (of course).

For the next couple days, he worked his tail off. He had big plans. Two stories, maybe three.

But after the first day, my husband came home and put a limit on the tower—no more than two stories.

Look at my husband’s posture in that picture. Arms crossed, head bowed. It does him in, all these slapped-up forts.

“When I was his age, I built a fort, too,” he told me later. “And you know how long it lasted? Twenty-five years! They had to use a tractor to pull it out of the tree!”

It’s legendary, that club/tree house is. It had bunk beds, a front and back porch, and a glass window. It was wired and insulated and sturdy as all get out.

“He’s having fun,” I said. “He’s just a kid.”

“He has no plan! He never measures anything!” my husband wailed.

“He’s not you,” I said. “And that’s okay.”

“He did use cross-bracing, though,” my husband said, brightening slightly. “He must be learning something.”

I liked the fort well enough. It kept the kids busy and out of my hair.

They climbed over the framework like a pack of monkeys, and I realized that the jungle gym I’ve always wanted my husband to build is entirely unnecessary. The kids are old enough to build their own jungle gyms.

Within a couple days, the fort was 16-feet high.

There is a shift that takes place when your kids gain the skills to construct monumental forts that reach truly frightening heights. I’m not exactly sure what to do with their newfound ability to threaten their physical well-being.

What if one of them falls and gets hurt? It’s not like injuries never happen.

So we set limits. My husband gave them the two-story limit, and he made them clean the old, poking-out nails out of the wood.

I yelled sage advice such as, You better not fall! I don’t want to spend my afternoon in the ER!” and, Broken bones hurt! You really don’t want to get one! and, You only have two eyes so they’re kind of important! And then I went back in the house and avoided looking out the windows.

And then the fort fell over.

It started to fall while the two oldest kids were working in it. When they recount the adventure, their eyes light up and their words hurry together. They make lots of sound effects. “This huge gust of wind came [sound effect] and there was this really loud [sound effect] and the fort started to tilt [sound effect], and I yelled, ‘It’s falling! Get out now!’ and we jumped out of there as fast as we could, and man!”

And so another fort bites the dust.

The end.

Update: Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids, showcased this post on her blog!

This same time, years previous: buttery brown sugar syrup and cinnamon molasses syrup

*morning sunlight through tired curtains
*a breakfast picnic
*the secret dirty life of my pots and pans
*look at that! They built me a cake! Black walnuts, mud, wild onions, poison (?) berries, and grass, mm-mm good
*don’t let the bare toes and lack of snow fool you—it really is winter, SEE THE SLED?
*showing off Brownie to a little visitor: you can read more about it here
*a sweet present from my hubby: there’s now a donut truck hanging out around the north end of town! Homemade donuts! With real potatoes in the dough! (or so I hear)
*Lucky Peach, the last part of my birthday present: the recipes are sparse (and weird), and the writing is irreverent (and r-rated) and informative and there’s lots of it—I’m loving it
*multitasking, and then the magazine slipped and nearly fell into the pot of macaroni
*in his father’s boots: two days on the job and all sorts of pride puffed
*playing with problems: he begs for math lessons (is it awful that my children have to beg to be allowed to learn?)
*my girlfriend came for lunch and I fed her some under-baked berry cobbler
*making brownies
*a bubbly, chemical-laden treat: chocolate straws (and is it awful that I give my kids chemicals for fun?)
*charwoman diva

This same time, years previous: for my daughter, butterscotch ice cream, creamy garlic soup (I want this right now), what I said

Recently, both a friend and a family member recommended I watch Forks Over Knives. The documentary is all the rage, I gather, but the premise—that a plant-based (i.e. vegan) diet is The Way—seemed a little off-kilter. So I read the reviews, talked about it to a few people, and added the movie to my queue. But before watching the movie (perhaps we’ll watch it tonight?), I Googled “criticism for Forks Over Knives.” Oh boy. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with questions. And then there was criticism for the criticism, but of course. It was a good old-fashioned food fight, but with data and pixels instead of spoons and mashed potatoes.

So I exchanged emails with family and friends, made more phone calls, and read more reviews. But when I sat down to write out my thoughts on the matter and how it is that I don’t jump on board all these health-food bandwagons—because how could I since there are about a million of them, and besides, I’d probably get a heart attack from all that jumping around—I realized that saying that made me sound like an ignorant fool because how dare I turn up my nose at healthy eating!

So I stopped writing and read more reviews and called my mom and called my husband and called my friend. When I get writer’s constipation, the solution is to talk it out, thanks heavens for phones and the people at the other end of them (though a stuffed animal propped up at the other end of the couch works okay in a pinch).

And then I tried to write again.

I’ve decided that what I have to say is stupid and pointless because Barbara Kingsolver has said it all already and I’m not nearly as eloquent as she is, but I’m getting a little bored with writing about bickering kids and yarn, so here goes.

Our society is up to its eyeballs in Dietary Rules of Law—Atkins! Raw! Local! South Beach! Zone! Low-calorie! Blood type! Macrobiotic! Organic! Fat-free! Whole Grain!—so that half the time we have no clue which way is up. I have a hunch that ours is a first-world problem, this figuring out what to eat. It’s a problem born of our over-abundance, endless opportunities, and an over-inflated sense of self-importance and control. And since we lack a connection to our food sources and can get away with ignoring the ebb and flow of the seasons, we resort to self-imposed food laws for parameters.

These laws come at us via books, movies, magazines, blogs, etc, all of which are full of pulpit-pounding experts eagerly trying to enlighten us as to how we’re slowing killing ourselves by eating—pick one—baked potatoes, butter, scrambled eggs, chocolate chip cookies, cooked spinach, raw milk, and without chopsticks.

I admit it stresses me out a little, because being told that I’M KILLING MYSELF WITH MY LUNCH is slightly stressful.

But back to this movie (which I haven’t seen yet so this is kind of ridiculous). I hear that these experts recommend a diet packed full with fresh vegetables. This sounds incredibly noble and good and right, but aren’t there other problems (i.e. fossil fuels) associated with shipping in out-of-season veggies and fruits? (But hey, with 70 degree temps in February, we may soon be able to grow kale year round!) Nothing stands in isolation—there are so many factors to take into consideration when discussing health and well-being. And eating a certain way to solve all our problems has problems of its own.

I know for a fact that I don’t have all the answers, and I have a hunch that no one else does either. (On both accounts, I’m sorry.) There are as many ways to eat as there are to raise kids as there are to grow food as there are to become educated as there are to make art, etc. and thank goodness. This fabulous variety is what makes the world beautiful and scary and exhilarating.

And this is the reason I’m hesitant to jump on bandwagons (except for ones I build myself).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a movie I need to watch.

This same time, years previous: cream scones, Molly’s Marmalade Cake, foods I’ve never told you about, part three