The View from The Johnsons: Kids at Play (WTH?!)

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Kids at Play (WTH?!)

I was eavesdropping as my kids played.

They were playing "ambulance" - I could tell by the siren.

Elizabeth instructed Spencer (playing the Paramedic), "Pretend you dropped the patient on the ladder."

Then she (playing the patient) said, "Ohhhh. Owwww. My face..."

Sucks to be Spencer's patient.

Then things took a turn. I still heard the ambulance siren, but I heard her say, "Pretend you saw our dad was disgusting because he was a Vampire Dad like our mom." Hey. Wait a minute here.

(Please hold for this brief interruption to your blog reading while I defend our parenting. Our kids have a children's book called Vunce Upon a Time about a shy, little, Trick or Treating vampire - they do not watch True Blood, nor are they familiar with the Twilight book series. Ok. Misunderstanding averted. Parenting honor vindicated. I will now resume your regularly scheduled blog post.)

"Pretend we're playing dodgeball..." *ambulance siren* *vampire snarl*

Ok. Wait. What?!

I don't think I'm creative enough to play pretend with my children.

That.

And, I'm a little scared.

Comments (6)

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dannyholwerda 34p · 712 weeks ago

This is a thing that always impresses me when I watch/listen to my kids playing, their ability to perform these on-the-fly imagination mashups. At some point, we must lose that, and that's when you play ambulance, and you're *only* playing ambulance, not dodgeball-vampire-ambulance.

Blake doesn't do this as much anymore, but he used to be unsatisfied with just pretending to be a puppy or a superhero, so he'd tell you, "I'm a baby-Darth Vader-Iron Man-puppy." I had no idea whether he wanted me to pretend to fight lightsabers with him or to pretend to give him a dog bone.

1 reply · active 712 weeks ago

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Ali_Johnson 80p · 712 weeks ago

that's brilliant! what i can promise you is, if he's anything like my kids, if you offered him a bone when you were supposed to fight him with a lightsaber... he WOULD have told you about it.

i think i just got sad to think that someday they'll ONLY be playing ambulance, not dodgeball-vampire-ambulance. why do we beat that creativity out of ourselves? somehow that makes me think of one of my favorite quotes:

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." -Albert Einstein
My recent post Kids at Play (WTH?!)

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MArcy · 712 weeks ago

I guess I should stop letting my kids watch True Blood.....eek.

1 reply · active 712 weeks ago

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Ali_Johnson 80p · 712 weeks ago

LOL!
My recent post Kids at Play (WTH?!)

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sparkling74 · 712 weeks ago

Pretend you dropped the patient on the ladder. WHAT??? That is sooooo funny. Where do they get these things? I can't believe there is a children's book called Vunce Upon A Time about vampires. Will this vampire thing EVER go away? I am so sick of it all! But I'm still laughing about dropping the patient on her face on the ladder!!
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Ali_Johnson 80p · 712 weeks ago

we were given that book as a gift. i had the EXACT same thought about vampires - they've even invaded CHILDREN'S books now?!

i laughed and laughed about the poor patient's FACE.
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