I must not love my kids as much as John Peterson, of Wisconsin. Because I would never spend three years, hundreds of hours, and an uncalculated number of dollars (I think Peterson just doesn't want to know) building a 200 square-foot tree house that's nicer than a lot of New York City studios I've seen.
The tree house has a spiral staircase, working windows and doors, a swing bridge, and electric lights. It's so big that the tree can't actually support it, so Peterson had to build stilts to bear the weight.
A televison anchor on a broadcast I saw about this family referred to Peterson's two kids as "spoiled," but I'm not so sure. It seems to me that extravagant gestures like this are what kids really remember - not just the giant tree house, but the times Mom and Dad took them to the movies in the middle of the night, or fed them birthday cake for breakfast, or produced from behind their backs a puppy with a big bow around its neck. No matter what happens - no matter how much Peterson's kids clash with him as teenagers, or how they might grow apart as adults, I guarantee they will never ever forget the treehouse their dad built for them.
