Mommy Ima

“Mommy, Ima kitty!  At the carnival! Watch me on the ferris wheel!  MEEEOOOOOW!”

This is how Preschooler usually greets me in the morning. Preschooler likes to pretend.  In fact, she is very rarely Preschooler.  Instead she is a princess, a doctor, a pirate, a pet-store owner, a chef, a mama, a zebra, a puppy.  It’s not just that she plays with her My Little Ponies or her stuffed animals, sending them on wild adventures, although she does do this.  It’s that she imagines herself to be something, and sends herself on a wild adventure.

At the same time, this amount of pretend play seems totally normal to me, if only because I engaged in so much pretend play as a child.  Best Friend and I met when were were 4 and 6 respectively, and for the next six years or so, we pretended pretty much everything.  We were doggies, we were mommies, we were teachers, we were astronauts. 

Eventually we outgrew pretending in favor of activities such as board-games and fingernail-painting.*  But out of that pretend play grew creative writing.  We’d write stories, poems, and even created newspapers.  We’d start novels that we never finished.  She inspired me to start blogging, and when I did she was the only one I told, if only because she knew me so intimately as a writer and she had seen me start and then give up on some many writing projects before.

So I’m thrilled to see Preschooler plays pretend.  I’m even more thrilled that Toddler is already following in Preschooler’s footsteps.

Who knows where this will take them?

*By the way, does anyone else remember having sleep-over parties where you all gave each other manicures, or experimented with make-up, or something like that?  Do teenagers even do these things anymore?  I’m pretty out of it.

Public Transportation: The Good

I spent all of third grade sharing a seat on the school bus with a Jehovah’s Witness.

I wasn’t very assertive. One day she came and sat by me, and said, “Hi, I’m Lisa! What’s you’re name?”

“Angela,” I replied.

“Today is my birthday!” she said with an enormous smile.

“Happy birthday!” I replied. “Are you having a party?”

“Nope!” Enormous smile.

“What about a cake?”

“Nope!” Enormous smile.

“Presents?”

“Nope! I’m a Jehovah Witness. We don’t celebrate birthdays!” Enormous smile.

Blink. Blink, blink.

I was confused. I thought it was sad. But she was older than me, and didn’t have many friends, so we continued to talk about whatever it was 9 year olds talked about in the 80’s. I don’t know, probably something about jelly shoes and which Babysitters Club member we’d most like to be.

The next day she sat by me again. And again the next day, and the next. And before I knew it, I had a permanent seat-buddy. Who didn’t celebrate birthdays, or Christmas, or Easter, and, as a learned during one bewildering school assembly, didn’t participate in the Pledge of Allegiance.

At least she was nice.

Coming Up Soon: Keeping An Open Mind During Public Transportation: The Bad. Featuring the time I was propositioned not once, but twice on a bus ride home from college.