How true the above words are when it comes to having kids! We get a peek into this whole world that they see and it makes me remember what it was like to be a child and truly be able to come up with the most vivid scenarios in my mind and go there with complete ease. It was so fun! I see Kate’s imagination at work most often when she does not realize I am around/watching/listening. Yesterday was a perfect example. She was playing upstairs, going from her playroom to her room etc. I could hear her talking to her dolls and animals, coming up with different funny voices to make them talk and sing. At one point, I heard her saying in a very insistent and somewhat urgent voice “Don’t worry, bear. Don’t worry! I’m coming to rescue you!” I crept upstairs and peeked around her door into her room. Kate was on her bed, leaning over the guard rail on her bed, stretching out the handle of a toy broom towards her stuffed bear (creatively named “Bear”), who was sitting on top of a chest under the window. She was yelling “grab it! Grab the bwoom! I am going to rescue you. Don’t worry, you won’t fall in the river! Grab it!” (I later learned that the chasm between the bed and the chest was actually a swirling river and Bear could not swim). I just stood there watching my little girl play and it was all I could do not to laugh and disturb her or go in and grab her up and squeeeeeeeze her in a big hug. I did both later after her little drama played out – bear safely on the bed, Kate hugging him and telling him “Good job, bear. It’s awight now!”
On top of her increasing imaginary play, Kate exhibits shades of me as a child in her love of books. Some people know that I was the epitome of bookworm as a child. I read so much – at the dinner table, in moving vehicles, instead of chores – that I got into trouble from reading. I would stash a flashlight in my bed so I could continue reading the tales of Laura Ingalls Wilder well after “lights out”, with multiple warnings by Mom and Dad to “close the book and get to bed”. One of my favorite xmas gifts ever was one of those "itty bitty booklights" that you can clip onto a book so you can read in the dark! I was supposed to just use it on airplanes etc. but BOLDY disobeyed! What a rebel! I even caused my parents a lot of financial damage from my reading! This is in reference to the time I was reading WHILE I was walking to school and I was so engrossed that I actually walked into a utility pole and knocked out my front teeth. To this day I sport partially fake front teeth. I cannot believe I am telling that story, actually – it has taken me Twenty Years to get over the embarrassment and be able to laugh about it – so laugh away! In short, I was a huge booknerd, earning the nickname “Nibs” which stood for “Nose In Books”….I still have books from childhood with the “To Nibs” inscription written in there.
I DIGRESS. Kate is Nibs2. Last night we put her to bed and heard her ‘reading’ out loud for HOURS. I think it was over two hours. She stayed in bed, and was just narrating all kinds of imaginary adventures out loud while we heard pages turning over the baby monitor. This went on and on and, for now, I did not have the heart to interrupt. I know what it is like to NEED that flashlight so I could continue the latest tale. So we let her go on, listening to the songs and voices and giggles with full hearts. When it was time for my own “lights out”, I went and checked on the then quiet Kate. There she was in her footed jammies, lying sideways on her bed surrounded by books, lights blazing, totally crashed clutching Bear. What a long day of animal rescues and raging rivers, princesses and unicorns.
No comments:
Post a Comment