Document and demolish

We’ve had a couple stay-at-home days while Will’s been fighting off a mild stomach bug. He’s played peacefully with Owen, due in part to our demolition-man strategy for dealing with 4-year-old build-and-preserve-it instincts set beside 14-month-old snatch-it-and-knock-it-to-the-ground instincts.

This is our policy for brotherly peace: Much of the time Will and Owen choose to play together or in near proximity – but if Will wants to build something temporarily off limits to Owen he goes to work in our office, with the doors closing Owen out. When he’s finished, he calls in Rob and I to view his work and ask him questions about it. If Rob’s at work, Will takes a digital picture of his masterpiece, carefully framing the photo to include as much of the structure as possible so that he can document it while it’s still standing.

And then we bring in demolition man Owen to knock the structure to smithereens. Will never protests – he seems to welcome the ritual. Meanwhile we’re acquiring quite a stockpile of digital photos by architect/photographer Will that look something like this: