So we’ve had a lot of snow lately, and this past weekend, Little A and I went outside for me to shovel a path down the side of the house and out the back gate (due to the quirks of my location, I very rarely go in and out the front – nearly always through the back gate instead), and her to build a snow fort. I piled up the snow in one spot for her as I shovelled, and she set about making it into a fort.

Once she’d roughed out the basic shape, she said “Muime, could I have your bulb planter?” I brought it to her, thinking she was going to use it to poke holes or something (for non-gardeners, a bulb planter looks like a wooden letter T with a metal point at the bottom). But she just stuck it into the snow and left it there, handle protruding like the throttle of an airplane.

She contemplated it thoughtfully, and then said “And now… one of the garden forks, I think.”

Curious, I asked her “Honey, what are you doing with those?”

“They’re going to be the controls!” she replied.

“Your snow fort has controls? What for?”

“For the lasers!”, she replied, in an isn’t-it-obvious tone.