One of my sweet nieces came to stay for the weekend and the girls spent the majority of the weekend moving dirt from here to there, constructing fairy houses and making mud pies. At one point, they told me all about this game they were playing wherein they were orphans and they were making a home in the woods and foraging for food. It's amusing to me that my brother and I used to play this same game when we were around their age...and here they are, one generation later finding amusement and adventure doing it all over again. I love that they're happiest when their shoes are kicked off and their toes are squinching up mud. I love that where I see a mound of dirt that they have built up in the corner, their imaginations have fashioned a hearth. Another mound? Food stores. Another? A slide...for mud-sliding of course. Throughout the day I put my ear to the window and listened in on the sing song rhythm of stories made up on the fly. These worlds of theirs go on past when the sun has set. When they finally retreat, they trudge into the house...hungry and hollowed out by a long day of play. Just as it should be.