Photos, Photos Everywhere- and memories of a little house

I was looking at a stack of old photos (from when I was about 4 or 5) while Mother Auma sorted another stack into an album (a typical scene from our house this last week). I came across some from our last house. First there were some from a hands-on museum called "The Science Place" and then some from the house.

We had, then, a little wooden house, only about 5-6 ft tall, in the corner of our backyard. Mounted on cinder blocks with a muddy patch behind it, the little cabin was a central figure in our pretends back then. As I looked at the picture several memories ran through my mind. I turned to Mother Auma.

"Do you remember our little Troll doll? And how we buried her purple hair in the mud behind our playhouse so it would turn brown?"

"I remember something of the sort," grinned Mother Auma.

"And how we gave our dollhouse people beautiful smooth brown clothes? That mud was just Play-Doh to us," I laughed, remembering also that I liked to squish around in it barefoot.

Another stack of pictures featured my 5yo birthday party, in which the little house was also a big player. A friend of mine is in one, right before opening the little log door, and another shows 2yo Mariel teetering along the stepping stones to the log cabin. The little house was a home, a hotel, a castle, Laura Ingall's log cabin, and anything our active imaginations could think up. I remember writing things like "Ore Clubhous" and "Ore Hotel" over the door in pink or blue chalk, and taking the little plastic table and chairs in there and sweeping and being called "Mommy" by baby Mariel.

Oh, sweet, careless days of seven years ago.