I guess it's what I would have done too...

We just went to the park with our neighbor and his two kids to fly kites. Kite flying was a handful, with gusty winds causing attack kites. Mostly it was an exercise for the adults, and soon the kids wandered off to the playground. Once the adults untangled the kite strings, we joined them. They quickly wandered off into the bushes.

Five kids, two sets of bushes, a full jungle gym -- and the kids are in the bushes.

After a little while, I ventured up to see what they were doing, and do a quick scan for dangerous items like broken bottles (or worse), when it dawned on me that this looked like a plausible teenager hangout. I got up the hill, and Noah met me.

Noah: "Him, Mom!"

Me: "Whatcha doing?"

Noah: "I'm going into my house. Do you want to go into my house?"

Me: "Sure! Can I come in?"

Him: "Okay. Come on in!"

We walk in, and he tells me he's going to lie down on the bed, and promptly crawls up onto one of the horizontal branches and lies down on it. There's another branch in another area large enough to support me. I ask if I can sit on it.

Noah: "Yes! That's the couch!"

We sit there for a few minutes, when he adds: "Do you want to watch TV?"

He then pretends to turn on a TV, which is clearly the leafy area across from the couch. We sit and watch "tv" for a few minutes. Then it happened....

Noah: "Okay, it's time for you to go."

Me: "I need to leave?"

Him: "Yes. This is MY house. This isn't your house. It's time for you to go."

Me: "Okay, thanks for letting me visit you!"

I go outside of his "house" and he gets back on his "bed," and I sit down under a nearby tree. After a few minutes, he trundles by, looking like he's headed somewhere.

Me: "Where are you going?"

Him: "To my other house...." He goes into the other set of bushes.

About this time, my husband calls to me from the playground: "Honey! Come down here and play with me!" I explain to Noah that I'm going to go play with his father, and he says "Okay, see you later!" His father and I then take turns on the balance beam, while Noah goes back and forth between houses. And eventually the boys all come back down and take over the jungle gym.

The picture of things to come, I guess -- my first inkling of the day when he *will* have his own house, and be ready for me to go home and leave him alone. But I'm more charmed, really, by the fact that it's exactly what I would have wanted to do too, in those circumstances.