I was reading The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism this evening, a frightening look at some Evangelicals’ attempt (and often more than just an attempt) to inject religion into government; K was working on documents for a listing she’s preparing; L was Facetiming a friend; E was drawing and writing a story about clowns. I realized it was seven already and I hadn’t done much of anything with the kids other than talk to them at dinner. I headed to E’s room and suggested we play with Legos.

“Yes!”

We’ve built a number of things with blocks over the years. A church. A school. A prison. Multiple boats. Countless wheeled vehicles. A bridge. A few houses.

Today, we took the remnants of the bridge, destroyed part of a prison watchtower, and broke apart the remains of some cars and other nonsense to create a battleship. The ultimate battleship. Complete with gigantic booms coming off the side that can smash any vessel that comes too close, a number of guns, fore and aft, that could take out a small armada, and a newly-invented weapon:

The head canon — a forward-leaning Lego man whose head can be launched at will toward any enemy.