A Big Cardboard Box

There is a book that we read often to our boys.  It is simply called, "Little Boy."  The book follows around a little boy as he has adventures with his friends, spends time with his dad, and uses his imagination to do all sorts of fun things.  Every section ends with the phrase...Little Boy, so much depends on...your big cardboard box.  The little boy uses the cardboard box as a pirate ship, as a tower, as a fort...and the list goes on.

Well, we don't really keep cardboard boxes around.  I like to think that I am a green minimalist, so we recycle, and I don't keep a whole lot of excess around.  When we lived in Baltimore, recycling was easy.  It was single-stream (everything in the same container) and they picked it up from your curb.  Here in our Bellevue community of Nashville, we actually have to sort it ourselves and physically take it to the recycling center.  So, needless to say, the recycling builds up much more than I want it to.

After purchasing a new lawn mower (long story...Eli mowed lawns last summer since he was off from teaching, and well, our little used mower had mowed one too many lawns...), we had this huge cardboard box in our garage just crying out for little boys to play with it.

And, so, they did.

It was a pirate ship.

It was a rocket, a swimming pool, a bed...you name it...they imagined it!

And, then, it was demolished (and taken promptly to the recycling center.)

Every once in a while, we will create art projects out of our cardboard boxes or the boys will jump in a box and break it into pieces (that's the fun part).   And, for their birthday, I'm going to try my hardest to put a HUGE cardboard box to good, fun use (more about that to come...)

Little boys, so much depends on your big cardboard box!