Canopies!

As our regular readers know, in recent months, the bambini have become taken with the Fancy Nancy books. Joe likes them because Nancy likes big and fancy words and he does, too. Nancy has put out a compendium (that's fancy for collection) of her favorite fancy words from A to Z. Her favorite word beginning with Y is yearn. Joe used it in a sentence right away: "I yearn for a DS." He thought he was hot stuff, Fans.

Clara likes the Fancy Nancy books because the stories and sentences are a little more involved, because the pictures are also more involved--always has liked fancy drawings, and because Nancy also likes to deck herself out all fancy like.

Nancy's whole world is fancy really. She's got a canopy over her bed. Sometimes, she stargazes and sleeps in a tent in her backyard. Canopies and tents are amazing when you are the ages of the bambini and Joe and Clara have been busy off and on trying to create them for themselves.

A few nights ago, Julie came upstairs to tuck herself into bed with her book, and found Clara still up. She said she was scared which is really a catch-all phrase these days that signals something is amiss in her world. In this case, she'd been trying to make a tent out of a blanket and it "all fall down." When she looked at Julie and said, "Can you help?" Julie said she would see what she could do.

That night, Julie made half a canopy with a yardstick, an unused closet hanging bar, and a baby blanket. It was the closet hanging bar that fit perfectly in the corner of the bed--and Birdie's soft delighted giggles--that set her to thinking about a better canopy.

So the next day, she stopped at Home Depot for dowel rods that were the same diameter. Turns out, they come in four foot lengths which was perfect; no cutting required! Target was having a January white sale, and so right dowel rods, two twin sheets, and some blue painter's tape later, the bambini had two surprise canopies. Since that first night, Julie's efforts have been refined by Ted who is, after all, a trained engineer. He secured the sheet at the top if each dowel rod with a binder clip, and will be swapping out the blue painter's tape for white duct tape.

But that first night, there was still delight. Joe--such a big boy--said, "I love it! I don't even know how to thank you!" Of course, he just had.