It's 8:30 on a Thursday night. Karyn and Lizzy are already asleep. Eli is over at his friend Max's house. I'm sprawled out on the couch reading a book by Thomas Armstrong about creativity and the importance of playing with your children. The doorbell rings. Eli bursts into the house and says, "Mama, let's build a giant structure with K'nex^TM that uses all my K'nex^TM and fills up the whole room!"
      I'm inspired by his enthusiasm, but I hesitate. I had other plans for my evening. Playing with Eli is not something that comes easily to me. Yet time for the two of us has been rare since Lizzy was born. With some reluctance, but with determination, I decide to chuck my plans.
      I tell Eli I'll build with him, but not without a lame parental comment about how late it's getting to be; that tomorrow is a school day. I ask him to get his pajamas on before we start to play. He does so without grumbling, and soon we are sitting across from each other on the living room floor, the yellow plastic K'nex^TM box between us. He snaps open the lid and we both start reaching for rods and connectors.
      At first, we build separately. After a while, he asks, "What are you working on, Mama?"
      "I don't know yet. But I am trying to make it symmetrical." A pause. Then I ask, "Do you like to make things symmetrical?"
      "Yeah, kids always build things symmetrical."
      "They do?"
      "Yep."
      The room feels thick with concentration. Minutes pass. Then he comes over to look at the base I've constructed. "Mama, it really looks like a space station now!"
      Pretty soon he's building at the front end and I'm working on the back. His mouth is slack with concentration. The only sound is the click, click, click of the connectors being attached and taken apart again. It's hypnotic.
      Eli's trying to stabilize two huge tires, bracing them so the whole structure doesn't collapse. "This is the bulldozer of it," he explains. "Sometimes space bulldozers look a little different than land bulldozers."

      We lapse into silence again. I'm trying to strengthen a weak spot, too. I try a red rod. It's too short to connect the grey to the red connector. I rummage around in the box, searching for the right length. I ask Eli: "What's just shorter than a red?"
      "A yellow." I grab a yellow. It fits!
      A moment later, stuck again, I ask, "Which is smaller than a yellow?"
      "Blue." His hand dives in the box and he pulls one out for me. It fits, miraculously.
      I look at him with love and wonder. I can't believe he's teaching me so naturally, with such confidence and ease.

      Ten minutes later, I'm working on a triangular brace to one corner of the space station. I'm trying to connect it with another piece that's at an awkward angle. Eli says it can't be done. I keep fiddling with this piece or that and finally I figure it out.
      "I did it!" I exclaim, triumph and satisfaction coursing through me. I feel joy, simple, sacred joy.
      Eli senses my mood. He smiles and looks up at me. "Isn't it wondrous, Mama?"

      Twenty minutes go by. Eli is humming to himself. Suddenly he exclaims, "Mama, it's not a space station anymore. It's a giant bug! Isn't this really starting to look like an insect, Mama? Let's have this be an insect, all right?"
      I continue doing what I was doing, the same as before. "Mama," Eli says, "What you're doing doesn't look like an insect."
      I click two more pieces into place. Eli reconsiders, "Actually, that does look like a thorax."

      Eli creates on a movable head with antennae. I'm losing steam, but he's still going strong. I sit back and watch him. He says, "Mama, I could never have built this if you hadn't built such a strong base. I couldn't have done it without you."
      "And I couldn't have done it without you," I tell him. "You came bursting in here with so much enthusiasm. You're the one who got us going."

      An hour-and-a-half after we start, there are just a few K'nex^TM leftover in the box. Our insect is huge.
      "We're not going to have to take this apart, will we?" When to take apart Eli's creations is always a bone of contention.
      "Nope," I answer. Eli looks relieved. "But we will have to move it out of the living room." He knows the reason why: Lizzy.
      He runs to the door of his bedroom. "I'll open the baby gate. Then let's move it as a team." It's fragile and we lift it with care. "I hope it doesn't break after all the work!"
      "Me too," I say, as we slowly lift it over the threshold.
      We set it in the corner. Eli says, "Let's admire our work for a minute." He's in awe of his own creation. "Wow, we must have been working for hours. Did we, Mama?"
      "Yes," I reply. "Almost two hours."

      I tell Eli it's time for bed. He begs, "Instead of a story, can we talk about my bug?" I agree and climb in beside him. He talks about the thorax and the abdomen and how triangles make structures strong. He asks me what kind of insect I think it is and he says he thinks it's a fly. "It's pretty amazing, isn't it, Mama?" he says, his voice getting thick.
      "Yep," I say. "I really enjoyed making it with you."
      "And I enjoyed making it with you," he says. A minute later, he slips into a contented sleep.
      Not long after, so do I.