What, pray tell, is so great about a kid having a vivid imagination? Isn't real life enough? Doesn't it present enough bizarre, inexplicable, baffling, hilarious, horrifying things to satisfy anyone? And aren't kids new enough to this world to be content to contemplate that the sun rises every morning or how the bees make honey or why Rick Santorum has become a viable Presidential candidate in the year 2012? Frankly, kids are a pretty easy-to-please audience in terms of entertainment. Have you seen the crap that's on Nickelodeon? Ever really thought about some of stupid toys you buy for your kids - pour cold water over Rapunzel's hair and it turns pink is about the pinnacle of preschool toy entertainment. And it's enough for them. It really is. Faithful readers of this blog will know my thoughts on Dora the Idiot Explorer and she is hands down the most interesting person on TV for Piper. OK, not really, Batman is, but - and I really like Batman - he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm pretty sure Alfred is doing most of the work in that relationship. But despite this really low standard of entertainment, kids are endowed with insane and unstoppable imaginations. Every mundane situation can be turned into something weirder and more terrifying than the world's worst acid trip. You can probably guess that in this department, Piper is pretty gifted too.
Ever since she's gotten a whiff of what Halloween is all about - and that was in utero thanks to her Halloween-obsessed godmother, who, while I'm tossing blame her way, also introduced Piper to her pice, but she makes up for it all by coming over and playing Drunk Playdough with Piper, so it's a wash - Piper has told me literally every day a new costume that she would like to be for Halloween. Some of her favorites include things like Bateman, Sleeping Beauty, a whale and a butterfly. Fine, normal, but lately the costume ideas have been more like this (these are quotes) -
* A sleeping, angry, nice green dragon with a long tail and fire in his mouth - real fire
* A giant bald eagle with no hair and wings with flag stripes (I'll take the hit for that one since she got the idea from watching the opening credits of the Colbert Report)
* A pink mermaid with a green tail and sparkles and a crown who is always under the water even while trick or treating
*A beautiful pink flamingo with shiny pink fur and loooooooong legs
*Broccoli
There are also the usual IMAGINATION trips like finding a ghost in every corner of our house, talking to her fingers and shoes like they are her students at school, nonstop role-playing with really angry horses and the requisite imaginary brother named Contest who lives in our toilet. OK, normal, sure, but what really started pissing me off about the age of IMAGINATION is how she's convinced she's going to turn into anything that she does too often. Yes, I may have once mentioned that if she ate one more chicken nugget, she would turn into one, but it was a joke for god sakes. She dissolved into tears immediately and regularly asks if it's a possibility. She turns to Jaime with plaintive fear in her eyes and says in this quivering voice "I don't want to turn into a chicken nugget." Ignore everything else I've ever tried to teach you and take seriously chicken metamorphosis. Right, you'll turn into a chicken nugget, but the dogs definitely won't bite you if you pull their hind legs off the ground by their tails. I'll plead guilty to a bad joke, but she won't let it go. I told her not to climb our fence once and she asked me if that was because she was going to turn into fence. Turn into a fence?? The city permit issues alone make that idea absured. So, bah on IMAGINATION. Whenever I think of that word, I think of the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and frankly it has always creeped me the hell out. That movie is disturbing from the first scene of those gross grandparents all sleeping in one bed to the last rocket out of the candy factory AND don't even get me started on those sadistic Umpa Lumpas, so I'm putting a moratorium on it in our house. We will stick to real life and sit around discussing real issues - the popularity of Jersey Shore and the Maryland guy who got drunk and shot at his lawnmower because it wouldn't start.
