our beach fairy house

Each year our town hosts a May Day celebration.  We've never been able to attend, but we've seen the fairy houses children build each year and display at our library.  Inspired by the book Fairy Houses of the Maine Coast by Maureen Heffernan, my kids decided they wanted to participate this year.

We spent last Wednesday at the beach collecting materials:  rocks, shells, sea glass, seaweed, and driftwood.  There's even part of a crab on the roof.  My middle daughter loves finding crab parts.

We spent 4 hours Saturday building it.  My oldest believes in fairies.  It was wonderful to see her excitement as she built this house, imaging how the fairies might enjoy their mussel shell beds and moss pillows,

or the hammock and swing,

or the chicken and rice dinner she made them (out of rocks and pine needles).

In the back left corner of the above picture is the dishwasher my middle daughter made for the fairies.

She wondered over and over whether they would come visit her house Saturday night.  When she woke up Sunday morning, the first thing she did was to visit the house, and the birch blankets had been moved back from the beds, and the fairies had moved some of the chicken and rice from the serving bowl on the table onto the table itself.

The sweetest details she added were the bedside lamp she made out of a seashell and seaglass

and the ceiling fan she made out of a feather.

We also added a fireplace with little logs...

and a swimming pool with a diving board.

Midway through building our house the ice cream truck made a stop in our neighborhood.  It doesn't come through often, so it was a huge treat.

I was able to put aside my obsessive desire to keep all things neat and tidy--it took me a few years to get over the anxiety I felt anytime my children mashed up different playdough colors together--and enjoy spending this time with my children.  It was a perfect early spring day.