This is a guest post by my friend Rita, mom to 3-year-old Ouri and 15-month old Ran. We both live in New York where you can never have enough space. But she shows us that you don’t need a lot of space to have a lot of imagination.

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Lately, my son Ouri has been making his way home from daycare on his scooter. It took me the longest time to allow him to ride it home because he is an incredibly fast rider, and I’m not in shape. But since the way home is uphill, I finally agreed. Strangely enough, it actually takes us longer to get home than if we walked. That’s because Ouri takes me on a journey, showing me the neighborhood like I have never seen it before.

The cracks in the pavement on 3rd street between 5th and 6th avenues are deep ravines between cliffs.

“Watch out Ima! Watch out the cracks! Go this way. No! This way!”

The fallen leaves on 1st street make an enchanted forest full of wild beasts.

“On no! Look the forest. Hurry Ima. The Lion. I’m scared!”

And spilled water (or dog pee) on the corner of Garfield Place is a boisterous river.

“Jump Ima. Jump!”

As I navigate his younger brother Ran’s stroller between the canyons and the volcanoes, I realize that I know what our next art project is going to look like. I found my inspiration on Pinterest, in this 1970s knitted landscape play area.

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Pretty stunning.

The next day I made a stop at Staples and got 3 kinds of construction masking tape in blue, green and yellow.

I decided on the borders with the green tape, and drafted the river path using the blue tape.

We made roads using the yellow tape.

Then we set up the railroad and began building the city using Legos and train tracks.

Pretty unexpectedly, a hurricane (or rather Ouricane) swept through city causing major destruction of many houses and the railway. Up until that moment when the forceful Ouricane hit, I forgot that we were still in the middle of our small living room. But seeing the destruction, I remembered one of the most important features of our newly planned city: the fact that it’s a secret city.

Our city happens to be exactly 65×95 inches big and once the Legos and the train tracks go back to their boxes, everything disappears under the rug!

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