Wild Imaginations

I believe I've mentioned before that my little sister loves dogs. When she was young we went to the Albuquerque Balloon Festival. My parents bought one of the child leases because they didn't want to loose her among the thousands of people that attend. Babe took to that lease and every time she wore it she would crawl around on hands and knees and insist we call her Twinkles.

I have seen other children pretend to be animals. It isn't anything new. What was new was the little girl I work with pretending to be a dog.

The class I work in is amazing. They love and adore Little Miss. On Friday one of the girls was walking around on her knees saying "I'm a baby." Little Miss thought this was funny and she got down on her knees. And then she got down on her hands and started to bark. It took me by surprise. Usually she imitates what she sees the others doing. She has never shown any sign of being able to imagine herself as something different. In fact Little Miss gets affronted if she thinks someone is calling her the wrong name. All during afternoon recess, outside on the blacktop, she crawled around on her hands and knees and barked. It was really cute.

The day before during lunch, before Little Miss came out, I noticed a young man who was behaving differently from the other kids on the playground. He had a rolled up paper in his hand and was hiding behind a basketball pole. He would peer around it, make shooting motions, and hide again. (Granted at another school he might be suspended for such behavior, but I knew his behavior was harmless. How did I know? Because he was doing what I used to do when I was his age.) I walked over to him and asked if he was enjoying himself. He looked up in a shock and put the paper behind his back. I said it was nice seeing someone with such a vivid imagination and wished him fun.

A few minutes later he and another boy ran by yelling something about an enemy soldier on their tail and they had to hide. They were doing it on Friday too. It is nice to see kids being kids.