All Our Ages
Today Kid A was playing a really interesting game. The rules seemed to go like this:
-Ask one of the people in the room how old they are (Take Daddy: 32)
-Announce, "I can count to 32!"
-Proceed to bury your head in Mama's side and count to 32, as though playing Hide and Seek
-Stop, look around and yell, "Where's 32?"
-Notice your Dad (who hasn't moved) and exclaim, "There's 32!"
-Repeat, asking someone else their age
I found it fascinating, sort of a combination of Hide and Seek and the Age Game. (Okay, I made the Age Game up, I couldn't think of anything else.)
Now that Kid A has flown full swing into make-believe, life is always interesting. And frustrating, too, at times. You may be eating dinner in a perfectly normal fashion (which for us these days is with up to ten other people on couches in the Big House) and suddenly it takes a turn.
"Kid A, please eat your spaghetti."
"Dinosaurs don't EAT spaghetti."
"Okay... what do dinosaurs eat?"
"Leaves."
"Then, if you can pretend you are a dinosaur, you can pretend that your spaghetti is leaves."
Lots of things are like this. If I tell my three-year-old that he can't stand on the arm of the couch, he'll explain that there are ALLIGATORS in the water and if he gets off, they'll get him. Obviously, I don't just let him get away with all his reasoning. He WILL eat his spaghetti, and he WILL get off the arm of the couch. But it's not just arguing to him. He really gets so caught up in his imagination that he finds it hard to break out. Almost all day I'm saying "Earth to Kid A, FOCUS, put your jacket on, put your shoes on, let's put the toys away... Hello?"
Hmmmm. This reminds me of someone. I can't for the life of me think who... OH!
"So then I was thinking that we should find that number and make sure we call her back... Hey! Are you listening to me, Honey?"
"Hmmm?"
"Chinua, did you hear what I said?"
"Sorry, I was gone for a minute there."
"Where did you go?"
"Fighting aliens."
Where IS thirty-two? It's like Madeleine L'Engle says. We are made up of all our ages. I'm a nine-year-old, a sixteen-year-old, a twenty-five year old. Good to remember when I feel like pitching a fit in the middle of the night when Leaf won't go back to sleep for two hours. (Okay, maybe I did pitch a fit. It was my two-year-old coming out.)
-Ask one of the people in the room how old they are (Take Daddy: 32)
-Announce, "I can count to 32!"
-Proceed to bury your head in Mama's side and count to 32, as though playing Hide and Seek
-Stop, look around and yell, "Where's 32?"
-Notice your Dad (who hasn't moved) and exclaim, "There's 32!"
-Repeat, asking someone else their age
I found it fascinating, sort of a combination of Hide and Seek and the Age Game. (Okay, I made the Age Game up, I couldn't think of anything else.)
Now that Kid A has flown full swing into make-believe, life is always interesting. And frustrating, too, at times. You may be eating dinner in a perfectly normal fashion (which for us these days is with up to ten other people on couches in the Big House) and suddenly it takes a turn.
"Kid A, please eat your spaghetti."
"Dinosaurs don't EAT spaghetti."
"Okay... what do dinosaurs eat?"
"Leaves."
"Then, if you can pretend you are a dinosaur, you can pretend that your spaghetti is leaves."
Lots of things are like this. If I tell my three-year-old that he can't stand on the arm of the couch, he'll explain that there are ALLIGATORS in the water and if he gets off, they'll get him. Obviously, I don't just let him get away with all his reasoning. He WILL eat his spaghetti, and he WILL get off the arm of the couch. But it's not just arguing to him. He really gets so caught up in his imagination that he finds it hard to break out. Almost all day I'm saying "Earth to Kid A, FOCUS, put your jacket on, put your shoes on, let's put the toys away... Hello?"
Hmmmm. This reminds me of someone. I can't for the life of me think who... OH!
"So then I was thinking that we should find that number and make sure we call her back... Hey! Are you listening to me, Honey?"
"Hmmm?"
"Chinua, did you hear what I said?"
"Sorry, I was gone for a minute there."
"Where did you go?"
"Fighting aliens."
Where IS thirty-two? It's like Madeleine L'Engle says. We are made up of all our ages. I'm a nine-year-old, a sixteen-year-old, a twenty-five year old. Good to remember when I feel like pitching a fit in the middle of the night when Leaf won't go back to sleep for two hours. (Okay, maybe I did pitch a fit. It was my two-year-old coming out.)