As soon as kids figure out what something is, they want it to transform into something else. Stuffed animals, for example. When he was a baby, it was fascinating to watch our son Sean learn over time that the fluffy
As soon as kids figure out what something is, they want it to transform into something else.
Stuffed animals, for example. When he was a baby, it was fascinating to watch our son Sean learn over time that the fluffy things with the beaded eyes were called bears, lions or dinosaurs.
Somewhere in toddlerhood, their identities changed. Most aren’t wild animals at all anymore.
Lately the tiny green bear that gets yanked out the most has been grandma, grandpa, a mail carrier, a garbage-truck driver, a barber, any number of playmates and my mom’s dog. So goes the imagination of a 2-year-old.
Learning about the objects in this big, new world only holds kids’ attention for so long. Once they’ve mastered one, they file it away in their brains and use it as a launching pad to the imaginary world.
That’s how my precious leather recliner, the ultimate man-chair, became a washing machine.
“Should we just pretend it’s a washing machine?” he’ll say now in that tone that suggests he’s losing patience with his slow-witted father.
So the couch pillows become dirty clothes. Sometimes they’re loaded into that “washer” even as I recline in it, which probably isn’t something the imaginary instruction manual recommends.
His view of things is so innocent, so unencumbered. I bet the washer in his mind has never clogged the lint trap, spraying water all over the basement. Can’t say I view that appliance with the same reverence.
Sometimes the chair morphs from a washer into a car, a change that happens so instantaneously that only the toddler notices. Mommy and daddy have to be alerted to the change. Duh.
Of course, imagination is spurred on by things people have read, heard or encountered in their lives. To someone who’s only been on the planet for a couple of years, that’s not much. That’s why the most-recent family excursion always carries over into the imaginary play.
For days after we go to a birthday party, the cars, animals and little figures are required to sing “Happy Birthday.” After we go to the real-life park, his toys flock to the pretend one.
It’s fascinating to watch such little brains hone that ability to pretend. Right now he colors jagged lines that could pass for abstract art, but someday our kid will refine those motor skills. When he’s ready to make refrigerator art, he’s going to draw some doozies.
Or so I imagine.
• Racine, Wis. Journal Times reporter Mike Moore writes Daddy Talk. His column can be found online at www.journaltimes.com/mom.
