Apparently I have a second wife, about which I knew nothing until the other night. Miles, describing his day over dinner:
This is mommy’s restaurant with the hot dogs and I was walking down the street with my gorilla on a leash so he doesn’t get away and an idea popped right into my head for the gorilla to eat upstairs and play with toys while I eat downstairs [we don’t have an upstairs] and eat food. No gorillas allowed in the pet store because there’s only people allowed. I saw a bee on the way and it was buzzing around honey and drinking nectar. Because you’re not allowed to get food on the toys. No, it wasn’t mommy’s restaurant, it was the Bay Bridge Restaurant [there is no such restaurant] a long long way away and I had to drive a car there, up a hill and down a hill and I put the gorilla in the front seat, and I have one daddy and two mommies, that’s three parents, and my other mommy’s name is Catherine Henry Frank.
The life of imagination of a three-year-old is so rich, and so many characters from his books and movies become part of our daily life, as if they actually exist (though the gorilla/restaurant story did not seem to be based on anything he’s read/consumed — totally improvised). I sometimes wonder if he distinguishes between reality and fiction at all. It’s a blessed state.
Nathan has a stunning imagination (hey, he just turned three on Wednesday), and shifts gears with enough ease to make a race-car driver blush. He’s driving a car, then he’s a kitty, then Daddy is a monster (rar!) but then no, just be Daddy again, and… you get the idea.
I recall reading, in the last months before Nathan was born, that children don’t actively distinguish between imaginative reality and empirical reality until they approach 5 years old. What we consider two worlds is just one world to them – kind of like a box of crayons that’s been left on the stove, all melted into a colorful amorphous mass.
Man – sounds like you’re describing life around our house :) Love the melted crayons analogy – that’s right on.
Have you been letting Miles watch Big Love on HBO?
LOL – Isn’t the show about a Mormon polygamist family? Maybe we should… but then we’d have to pay the ransom for HBO access…
Those pesky gorillas – how they do stray….
Miles must be at the top of his game if he already knows they need to be kept on leashes at all times, and that you should NEVER let them see you eat.
That bee thing, though: he totally made it up. All of it. Everyone knows bees wear suits and drive Lexuses and work in Beetown.
…and I have one daddy and two mommies…
Why Scot, you sly dog you! ;)