When I was a kid, we used to set up an old canvas tent in our woodsy backyard.  On warm summer days, I would crawl into the tent with my comics or books and read in the shade, with the tent flaps open to the breeze but with the screen zipped.  Sleeping bags were spread out and a plastic glass with Kool Aid was close at hand (I can still taste the plastic…).  If you were lucky, you had a plate of chocolate chip cookies or a little bucket of fresh strawberries,  blackberries or raspberries, that were picked in the woodlot next door.  Even better if there was an afternoon rainstorm – can you smell the canvas and the pine trees?  Sometimes you could “convince” the cat to join you.  But you were just fine without him.  Sometimes you had friends with you and sometimes not.  It didn’t matter.  Good times.

As a Mom. I want my kids to have that memory, or at least something similar.  We don’t have a woodlot and we don’t have pine trees.  The backyard is tiny.  The tent I set up in the backyard is not canvas, but rather some sort of nylon.  It does not smell like anything special.  However, there are zippered windows on all sides and the tent is waterproof (our old tent leaked a bit).  I set out sleeping bags and blankets and provided the girls with comic books and graphic novels, chips and Kool Aid Jammers. 

I guess the kids played in there one or two afternoons.  After that, they were worried that the sleeping bags had dirt (grass clipping) on them and that there were daddy long legs in the corners.  They would rather read in the house on the couch.  Bug free.  No “dirt”. 

So to hell with the kids.  I’m going to read my Jack Reacher books in the tent this summer.  I might even make a “no kids allowed” sign…and the cookies will be all mine.  Bloody kids.  Can’t even force them to have fun.