Getting Inspiration From Kids (or what to do when you have cabin fever)

We were homebound for a week during the winter break.  Cabin fever was setting in.  When I had a chance I was woking on my writing, but I was struggling to make progress.  I was rescued by my 6 year old.  He climbed into my lap when I was listlessly browsing Pinterest, and demanded activity ideas.  He loved the cardboard creations I had pinned, and we worked on making a castle together.  He drew where he wanted me to cut windows.

When the castle was finished was when the real creativity began.  I sat back and watched.  The castle was populated, becoming a bustling place.  They were having a jewelry show.  The people were having issues reaching different levels of the castle, so they invented different “inators” to help them to get where they wanted to go.  A rockinator to go up, a bananainator to go down.  They had a movie theater (his Kindle) to watch movies.

The next day, a bad guy attacked the castle.  I came in the room to hear “say goodbye to your beautiful castle!” as the walls tumbled around the unlucky gem merchants, movie goers and soldiers.  It was a sad day for the people, but they will rebuild and recover from this tragedy.