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How to Live with the Mess Your Children Create
Reflections on household chaos and Imagination
Once long ago my two younger brothers got it into their heads to create an enormous fishpond. After years of keeping multiple aquariums, the older of the two drew up some plans and began to dig. They were barely teenagers at the time. My dad, always on board for anything that required a shovel or hammer, jumped in and helped. In went concrete and rebar, a filter, a fountain, and a dozen fish. Colourful koi.
Generations
Once long ago, my spouse lost his job in the last few days of the school year. There would be no summer vacation that year, no travel, no camping.
But I found an old trampoline a neighbour was selling for next to nothing that would be our seasonal fun. Up it went, and in rolled the kids. Our yard was the place to be, and my kids were happy to stay home.
As for camping, the boys threw their mattresses on the upstairs deck, and slept out under the stars. If it rained in the middle of the night — as it did often that year—my mom-alarm would go off, and we’d bundle those mattresses and the bedding back into the upstairs hallway.
In the morning, those same mattress would fit perfectly into the flight of stairs, and create a deluxe slide, especially if the satin-covered one was at the bottom to finish with some speed. A mound of pillows would catch flying bodies.
These were generational traditions in my home.
Long ago, my uncles grew up pulling apart radios and jukeboxes. Their friends brought over cars to discuss and repair. On weekend nights the family restaurant was reconfigured to make way for square-dancing.
In the house I grew up, with three brothers, the yard had an above-ground pool at one end, and a moto-cross track followed the inside of the fence, complete with berms and jumps made of old sheets of plywood. The track was worn, and had long given up any dream of becoming lawn.
A grouping of old grand-poppa maple trees in the backyard held a four-storey treehouse. Tree branches offered swings here and there in the yard. One cedar was known as The Tree that didn’t like to…
