According to Cruella DeVille, the eagle goes "tweet, tweet."

Lately, Lucas has been immersed in imaginative play. Being such a verbal and imaginative child, he is able to act out scenes from different things he has watched or stories that he knows. He loves Jonah and the Whale, Sprout's Fireman Sam, and stories about hubby and I as kids that he begs us to tell and re-tell. But, his favorite movie these days is 101 Dalmatians. He only watches it in 15-20minute segments but he is fascinated with all the puppies and the story. If he can't remember the name of one of the characters, he wants me to just choose one so that he can continue replaying the drama to himself. More often than not, he wants hubby and I to be involved in the story with him. He assigns us characters and we have to pretend to be them along with him. Even when I am doing my mommy tasks, Lucas wants me to perform them in character. There seems to be a trend of gender reversal where he assigns himself and hubby more female characters and me more male characters. With Caden and our pup Hadley (yes, even they get characters), it goes both ways. I don't think this is Lucas' commentary on gender equality. I really think he just picks his favorite characters and most of them just happen to be the girls in these stories. In Fireman Sam, he always wants to be the little girl "Sarah" and wants me to be her brother "James." But sometimes I get to be Fireman Sam himself and rescue any number of characters from danger.

Going along with the dalmatian theme, this morning I was assigned to be "Rolly" (should I take that personally?) and he was "Penny" and Caden was "Lucky." He was pretending that Cruella DeVille (the lady who steals the puppies for those of you who aren't as well-versed in the story) was eating breakfast with us and then coloring with us and finally reading books with us. "She is not mean, mommy," he said. "She just needs some friends." Can't argue with that!

As we were sitting and reading his favorite book of animals, he was going through each one and telling me what sound they make. I am not talking about ducks and sheep and pigs here. He was looking at pages of all different kinds of birds and then insects and then fish and making up noises for each. Do you know what sound a stick insect or a centipede or a flamingo or a starfish makes? Lucas does, apparently, and they are hilarious!! Some sound like a laugh, some a whoosh, some like little bells. I couldn't wipe the grin from my face at the pure imagination and inventiveness of this 2yr. old boy on my lap. While on the bird page, he made a "tweet, tweet" noise for the eagle. "The eagle is a very sophisticated and majestic bird," I informed him. "I bet it makes a more dignified noise than "tweet, tweet." (Actually, I have no idea what an eagle's noise sounds like so he may be right.)

"No, Rolly,"he said. "Cruella DeVille told me that the eagle says 'tweet, tweet'."

Well, Penny, then I guess he does.

I think he's just the most adorable 2yr. old on the planet learning about imaginative play and it is priceless. It is exhausting at times for my introverted self. It gets tiring having to make up stories and act things out and stay in character all day. My personality lends itself much more to doing puzzles and crafts and other more quiet things. But with Lucas, I have had to learn to step outside my own comfort zone and enter into his world. And his is a world full of really great things: puppies, and trucks, and trains, and people who need friends. He plays with his cars and trains and creates the most elaborate story-lines. I love that his imagination is just as vivid when playing alone as when he pulls us in. He definitely incorporates little boy themes of crash and construction and fire. But just as often, he acts out these tender scenes of compassion and friendship. He is my tender-hearted little rough-and-tumble boy with a very active imagination and the vocabulary to match. I can't wait to see what amazing things are in store for him.