The Taj Mahal
posted in OmegaDad, OmegaDotter, OmegaGranny, Parenting |
“Dear diary: Today I did a lot of things, and da worked on my playhouse.”
Many years ago, OmegaDad told OmegaDotter that if she saved her money, he would match her money and they would buy the materials for him to make her a playhouse.
This summer, GrannyJ presented us with a check, a nice sum to do with as we pleased. One of the things “we pleased” was to use some of it to buy a Grand Edifice for the backyard. The dotter’s savings amounted to $125 or thereabouts, and we used that as part of the money to purchase the Grand Edifice.
Or to purchase the parts to a Grand Edifice–the construction that I have been calling the “Taj Mahal”, a grandiose frivolity for a dearly loved one. I knew that the Taj Mahal was built by an Indian rajah to honor his wife; what I didn’t realize that it was a mausoleum to house her remains after she died. Oops. But that’s what I named it in my mind, and that’s what it’s going to stay in my mind from now on.
OmegaDad has been working on this creation for weeks, in and around bouts of bad weather. Yesterday he took the day off work and worked on the Grand Edifice, and he worked on it today as well. So now the Taj Mahal is now almost complete. It is definitely complete enough that it can be played upon by an eager and excited OmegaDotter, who at bedtime, after her hug and kiss from daddy, said to him, “Daddy? Thank you for my playhouse!”
Behold, the edifice:
The pink and purple blob you see in each picture is the dotter gamboling upon this construction. The glowing white spots are the hey-it-works! light-reflecting strips from her winter jacket. Alas, the light was fading, so the picture of her and me swinging is too dark to be lightened up without becoming grossly grainy, so you don’t get that picture.
All I can say is that she’d damned well better play on the damned thing every single day. Harrumph.
(I, myself, may end up playing on it every day. It’s quite grand.)
