The Wild Indoors

One of our greatest joys as parents is witnessing our son's amazing imaginative play. He morphs from puppy to lion to bird over the course of five minutes and a bowl of Cheerios. Or he transforms carrots, rocks, and washcloths into precious babies that he tucks into the couch where they are "shhhh, sleeping!" and we must turn down the audio on our voices.

Naturally he can't go about having all the fun and drags us into his pretend world with a simple, but persistent, "Pretty, pretty please." Soon we are crawling on the floor or hiding in the closet or opening the back door to boot monsters to the curb.

A recent adventure involved one of Geddy's favorite activities: going to the river to throw rocks in. He had been tossing and splashing and "getting all wet" for a little while when he tugged at Luke, engrossed in his laptop screen, and asked him to come to the river. Luke rose from the dining room table and walked three steps to the living room where he had to catch himself before slipping down the bank and falling into the swift flowing water. Geddy started pointing out the "big ones," so Luke squatted a bit and lifted a large rock to his shoulders and then, shot-put style, heaved it into the river where it made such a splash that even I got wet in the kitchen.

This imagination thing got so intense that as I went upstairs I heard Luke say, in all seriousness, "Geddy, don't throw rocks at me." I turned around and chimed in, "No throwing at people." Luke started laughing. You know you're a little carried away when you start admonishing your child for imaginary rock throwing!

"That very night in Max's room a forest grew" Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak