A "Sowrd" and a Wand

I find these things all the time, little things, temporary things, junk, trash... and in them I often find amazing treasure.  I was actually holding this little gem...

 And then I noticed this...

 The one there on the top, well, it had this written on it:

And that other one?  This:

So, there you have it, these are no longer paper towel tubes, they are, really and truly, a Sowrd (sword) and a wand.  It says so right on them.

Imagination.  I love being in its presence, not just in the boys, but anywhere, really.  But, wait a sec.  You know what, I am not talking about the fruits of imagination - Art, Literature, Music, you get it - but the process of imagining, the thing that goes on when we turn the tangible into dream, idea into art, love into words.  It is a most remarkable opportunity I have, we have, we parents, to watch that primitive impulse to make up, to conjure, to manifest things from nothing.  It's so beautiful and simple and innocent and true.  I sometimes get mad at myself for forgetting that I can do it, too.

We are, right now, deep into the Harry Potter series, book four, I believe.  We read every night before bed, usually as the boys have a piece of fruit or a cookie, for a half hour or so.  By wife is a marvelous out-louder reader (I just can't think of a better word for that, 'narrator' isn't right, oh well...) and we've been doing this since before the boys can remember.  In fact, often of an evening, my dear Marci will read to them as a fire cracks in the living room for an hour or longer.  It seeps into their imagination.  It shows them storytelling.  It gives them heroes.  I don't need to list the many reasons we do this, that seems obvious, but I will say this:

The boys love it.

Here are some spells the boys have been working on.

Nick's on the left there was the original, as I saw it, they worked together on the second there, which Zack printed.  As you can see, "lit" originally was a turn minichur (miniature) come up from the ground spell is now simply, turn small.  And finally, Zack spent probably a good hour or so finalizing them all in this very "official" as he called it, list:

It's a damn shame they only have one wand between them.  I think they should try the "Sh" spell backwards to see if they can transform their "sowrd" into another wand.


It is a joy and an honor to be privy to all of this.  It is also a joy and an honor to show it to you, now and, perhaps, some time ahead.


From Marci's "...things you don't expect to hear form the backseat..."

"Could I have access to your heaviest shoe?"


Nick said that and it is really my favorite on in this series thus far.  Who builds such a sentence?  I mean is this a threat or, jeez, I do not know...


I am glad you could stop by today.

(I tease about Nick's spelling, and, in his defense, he is aware of it and working on improvement.  However, if I gave you these two spellings, 'sword' or 'sowrd' which seems better?  Yeah...)