The Tree House

For months now Jude has been obsessed with tree houses.

I’m not sure where the obsession started but every day he would ask, “Can we go to the wood store to buy wood and nails so I can build my tree house?” Then he would draw up plans with detailed instructions on how we were to design and build the tree house. I think we may have the next Pete Nelson on our hands, we even started watching Tree House Masters.

Now our backyard isn’t very large and and there are no trees that could actually accommodate a tree house. So what do you do when literally the ONLY present Jude requests for his birthday is a tree house?

You plan to get him a wooden play house/swing set and explain that not all tree houses need to be built in trees.

After learning how ridiculously expensive wooden swing sets can be I started searching Craigslist for used and potentially free sets. I missed out on a few good deals and avoided some sketchy ones. Then my parents learned of Jude’s obsessed and my dad set out to find an affordable new option. He found a great deal on a cedar play house/tree house at KMart of all places. I NEVER would have thought to look at KMart for a wooden play set. (It was a joint present for Jude and Noah’s birthday from all of his grandparents.)

So this past Saturday Joe, his dad and my dad spent 6 hours assembling the play house/swing set. To say that Jude was elated about building a tree house is an understatement. He spent almost the entire 6 hours helping to build the “tree house” and he even wore his safety glasses (Norm Abram would be proud).

When the tree house was finally built he spent about 2 minutes playing on it and then proclaimed, “What are we going to build next?”

I know he and Noah (and eventually Simon) will enjoy playing on the new tree house but I think the real present for Jude was the opportunity to build something with his Dada, PopPop and Boogie.