Play Time

From _lightroom3

Imagination is just taking off.  He says fantastic things.  He does lots and lots of pretend play.

He got this construction play rug for his birthday.  He got a lot of tonka trucks for his birthday.  They were on his birthday cake and cookie.  Now we "play" construction site, and the excavators clear the roads and fill the dump trucks and the rollers smooth the roads and G Grader "uses his mighty blade".  Some of what he says he repeats from his books.  Some of it from things he's seen.  Some of it I have no idea.

We play hide and go seek on the construction site.  His front loader hides "under the dirt" (under the rug) and my bull dozer counts to ten and drives around the construction site asking the other friend trucks where the front loader is.  Eventually my bull dozer starts digging up the dirt and - wow! - look at that, there he is.

He laughs.

But pretend play is serious too.  Little brother can't get too close, or touch the trucks, and definitely can not put them in his mouth.  He does anyway.  Big brother just has to deal at some point.

Sometimes his truck, whichever one he's being, talks to one of his talking cars, and then his car responds back, intelligently.  It's just amazing how much more cognizant he is then this time last year.  He's always been smart and aware, but now it's just like ... I don't know he's "on."

Which means lots of things are changing.  I can't really talk about him in front of him anymore.  We did at his three year appointment and it felt wrong, and G knew I was upset and he knew it was because of him.  He screams at me, "Mama!  Don't talk to me like that!"  Because mama has said that to him.  I ask him, "how should I talk to you?"  He has no answer for that.  And then I have to say the every helpful ( /sarcasm) "I'm the mom - you're the kid.  YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!"

Ha.  Yeah right.

He talks on the phone.  To his Daddy and his grandma.  He can hold a pretty decent conversation, tell you about his day.  Sometimes he gets messed up and events run together.  For instance, "I played airplanes outside with the sprinkler."  Nope ... two separate events.

He's doing great.  Little by little.  Day by day.  Always has.  Inspite of everything he's been through.  He's doing great.