Executions

Ben and Mitchell are buds.  Best buds.  If asked who their best friends are, they both claim each other are.  They usually play wonderfully together and come up with some pretty fantastically imaginative games to play.  Sometimes Jack is invited to join.  Sometimes not.

All it takes to mess up this relationship though is the addition of a third kid.  Suddenly, sides are being taken.  Good guy and bad guy roles get handed out.  Competitions begin.  Battle lines are drawn.

The boys had their adorable cousin staying with them all week and I began to here a lot about exclusions.  Two of them would gang up on the other one and loyalties were constantly changing.  I just couldn't keep up anymore and banished them to the basement to figure it out.

It did begin to get funny though as Mitchell tried to assimilate the new word "exclusion" into his vocabulary.  He kept coming to me, defeated, complaining that once again, Ben had executed him.  Poor kid.  He was executed repeatedly over the week.

Junkyard Wars: The Jet

Ben and Mitchell have a new obsession.  Remember that show Junkyard Wars from a few years back? The series where teams of people run around a junk yard, collecting bits and pieces to put together something, quite frankly, a little unbelievable?

Ben and Mitchell are fascinated.  And they think if only they had access to a junk yard, all their dreams of building, owning, and operating a jet powered trike would come true.  It looks so simple to them, and it gets their imaginations bursting at the seams.

Just a few nights ago, after school, it was dinner time and getting dark and chilly out.  Dinner was ready and getting cold, but I just couldn't bear to stop the boys from what they were doing.  They had emptied out the garage, finding stuff I didn't even know what in there, busily building a two-man jet.  They weren't quite finished adding improvements to it and were having the time of their lives.  This time, I let dinner get cold.  That's what a microwave is for.  They played until past dark.  But they built their jet.

Mission accomplished!

Seems To Still Be Working

Mitchell was having a bit of a rough time getting his imagination in gear the other day. He was disappointed that I wouldn't let him play with my Iphone while I showered and his attitude was just getting in the way of his creativity!

After showering and dressing, I went into his room to check on him and he was just laying on his beanbag and nothing else in his room had been touched! I asked him why he hadn't played with anything or done anything, and he said, "Mom, I just don't know how to play! I just couldn't think of anything to do! I just had to lay here! I think my imagination is broken..."

Bummer. What do you do when you are only 4 years old and already your imagination has stopped working? That is truly a travesty!

I told him he could come into my bathroom with me while I dried my hair, feeling sorry for my poor little boy who somehow broke his once fantastic imagination. I was actually giving the matter some serious thought and wondering if perhaps I had been letting him play on my Iphone too much, when I stopped to look and listen.

He had taken my three pairs of fingernail clippers, an overnight case, and a round brush and had made them into a family. The large nail clippers were the dad (Tim), the medium clippers were the mom (Leelah), and the small ones were the little girl (Little Leelah.) The lived in an overnight case (Narnia) and the round brush was the neighbor (Gloobah.)

As I put my make-up on, his little family had quite the adventure around my bathroom (that Gloobah was quite the trouble-maker...)

I didn't tell him, but I think I'll stop worrying. I'm pretty sure his imagination is still in good working condition.

Just Imagine!

Mitchell comes up with some pretty interesting "what if" scenarios. Today, while finishing his lunch, he was contemplating a world in which his pesky mother didn't wipe or wash all the food off his face and hands after he so masterfully put it there.

After a sip of milk, (which completely covered his upper lip of course) he put some words to his thoughts: "Mom, what if we lived in a world where all wipes were sharp! And what if tissues were spiky?! And when you turned the faucet on, sharp spikes came out instead of water! Can you imagine that?"

I can imagine it, yes. I imagine your face would very quickly be unrecognizable from all the peanut butter and other food collected there.

Running Away Music

While we were eating lunch yesterday, Mitchell asked me if I would please turn on the "running away music." Now, because he has made this request before, I knew what he was talking about, but perhaps you need a little help with it. "Running away music" is classical music. The boys love it when I turn the radio on to the classical station, especially when there is a faster, louder song in a minor key. What I always thought of as "danger music," make them imagine running away from something dangerous, so that is what they call it!

Mitchell comes up with his own titles for the compositions. Yesterday, he listened for a minute, chewing on his sandwich, then said, "This sounds like someone got left at the park and their mom is never coming back." After listening for a moment, I had to agree with him. It was quite a sad and scary sounding song.

The next song he described as "like flowers in the backyard and we're playing there!"

I love the images classical music makes him picture in his head. His descriptions are so childish, but so fitting to the music!

Other times descriptions/titles that have stuck in my memory are, "Promise to Come Back," and "The Basement Song." Anyone who has seen my basement can guess what that song sounds like!

My boys have such vivid imaginations, and thankfully are eager and happy to describe things for their somewhat imagination-challanged mom. I'm glad I don't have the imagination of a young child (I might be committed to a loony bin if I really did; can you imagine seeing the world that way as an adult?), but experiencing it second hand through them makes life a bit more interesting.

The Dungeon

We have a dungeon.  It is the dark, cold, scary place in which I store a few boxes and also make dozens of trips a week to do laundry.  My washer and dryer are a little old, so they take constant hand-holding, which makes a lot of extra trips down to the dungeon.

Have I mentioned the boys love it down there?  I have to sneak down there to move the laundry along in order to not bring them with me and loose them in the dark, shadowy, spider web-infested depths that run the length of my house.

I'm not sure why, but my boys have wild imaginations and no fear, it seems.  They are not afraid of scary things some kids fear such as ghosts or monsters or skeletons or dark basements.  

Today, while their imaginations were still running in high gear after story time with Dad, they got to talking about our dungeon.  Matt suggested they sleep down there from now on, and they were half in horror, half totally excited at the mere idea of it!  

Ben:  There are huge spiders down there, hiding in the shadows!

Mitchell: Dad, did you know there is a big arm down there that reaches for you and grabs you?

B: Dad!  There are spiky worms down there!  They are small but covered in spikes as sharp as knives!

M: And there are Keeves that suck you in with their legs and eyes and suck you down in!

B: And there are not-so-nice-sheep!  Don't pet them or you'll get stuck to their wool!

M: Big, scary shadows hide everywhere, Mom!

B: Stay away from the boxes, mom!  If you get too close, they will reach out for you and grab you and suck you inside them!

After this, it started to get a bit... creative.  It no longer made much sense, but it was hilarious.  I had plenty of reasons already to not want to do laundry already.  Now I have a few more.

 I'm not sure where they get all of these scary ideas, but I have a suspicion it comes from a certain "big dude" in the house.  I love that they can come up with these ideas and get imaginative and creative with it without actually being frightened.  What a couple of crazy boys...

A Psychedelic Discovery

Ben really has a way with describing things. For example: he describes his mind/imagination as his "tv" and when he is imagining something or trying to picture something in his mind, he looks off into space, at his "tv," then describes to me quite well the scene he sees there.  It is a very effective tool for him and comes in quite useful when he is trying to remember something or describe something to me that is difficult.  He is even beginning to use it to help him spell more complex words.  

Today, he described a new discovery to me, and it was so well-described and articulated, I felt I really could picture on my own "tv" his vision.  

After pressing his fists into his closed eyes for a minute or so, he suddenly opened his eyes, and, with an excited look on his face, described to me the wonders behind his eyelids, as if this was the very first time he has ever noticed it isn't just black and blank back there!  

"Mom!  when I close my eyes really tight and push on them, I see crazy things!  I saw a swirling, purple tornado and I was falling down through it!"  I encouraged him to try it again, telling him he might see something different the next time.  "This time the tornado is light grey and there are spaceships zooming around and at me!"

We then had a little talk about how he just discovered pictures and scenes in the seeming darkness behind closed eyes, and he suddenly remembered something related and had to tell me about this as well, only with a bit more of an ominous tone to his voice.

"Sometimes, at night, when the rest of you have all gone to sleep and the whole house is super dark but I'm still awake, I see things in the dark!  If I stare into my room in the dark, sometimes I see tiny things floating around in the air!  They sometimes look like little pieces of candy!"

Now, I don't really know what these nighttime visions are all about.  Perhaps I should pay closer attention to what he is eating at night!  I couldn't really tell him much concerning this other than to say it sounded pretty crazy, which he loved to hear.  "Mom, it is crazy, and also a little spooky!  But not scary spooky - just crazy weird spooky!  I've been meaning to tell you about it, but I keep forgetting!"

I do love talking with Ben.  He is so great at putting words to his ideas and dreams and visions.  I have even begun to picture my own memory and thought process as a TV in the air that I can look at and use to help me describe a picture.  Perhaps, this makes me a bit crazy, but so far, no nighttime hallucinations.