"Wanna play pretend with me?"
Looking to capitalize on a napping baby sister, Shaelyn approached me with wide blue eyes and a doctor's kit in hand.
"You be Shaelyn, and I'll be Mommy, OK?"
I guess "Mommy" is also a doctor, because pretty soon I was being administered a shot. Wanting to put on a brave face, I grimaced, but immediately smiled.
"No, Shaelyn. You're supposed to cry."
Yet another shot was administered. This doctor was ruthless! This time, I obediently shed the obligatory tears.
"Good job!" said Mommy/Doctor. "Now let's go get a treat."
Because this was make believe, I was expecting an outstanding treat. A castle made of ice cream. An indoor-bouncy-castle playground permanently attached to our house. A McDonald's instead of a kitchen.
"Here we are at the store!"
The store?!
"Hold my hand. We'll go get you some socks."
Some SOCKS?!?!
Turns out, Shaelyn (I mean "Mommy") wanted to reenact everything that the real Shaelyn does in these situations. After a trip to the doctor, we always hit the $1 bins at Target for a treat. And what does she usually pick out? Some character socks, of course. We have Lightning McQueen, Mater, Cinderella, Ariel, Hello Kitty, and Abby Cadaby, just to name a few.
I was handed some "mermaid socks."
And my own pair of Lightning McQueen shoes.
My pretend crying must have been really good.
We also went to the library. I had to be buckled into my car seat for this one. I, of course, did NOT want to be buckled in my car seat and did NOT want to climb in the side where "Mommy" had opened the door and did NOT want to hold her hand in the parking lot. "Mommy" was very patient with all of this. In fact, she seemed to know how my mind worked, that intuitive lady!
But she laid down the law.
"Hold my hand, please."
"I don't WANT to hold your hand."
"But there are cars."
"I don't SEE any cars."
"Shaelyn, there are cars and they will hit you. Hold my hand or we go home."
Hmmm . . .
After swallowing a dose of my own medicine, I held "Mommy's" hand and entered the library. (Complete with the sound effect of two sets of automatic sliding doors opening - I was impressed these little details were remembered and entered into the imaginary world.) I went to story time, where I was told I had to "sit back down" and did a craft project of gluing fish and frogs onto a piece of paper. When I asked if I could go look at some books, I was told I had to "glue one more frog" to my paper, then I could.
This Mommy is a hard-nose. I don't think I've ever said that!
Finally, after enduring story time and fish/frog gluing, I was able to go look at books. I picked out a Clifford book. I asked "Mommy" to read it to me.
"My name is Clifford. I am a big red dog. I'm Em-ee-wiv-bef. My dog is Clifford."
It was a good book. So I decided to check it out. "Mommy" took it to the check out counter for me, beeped it a couple of times, said "thank you" to the imaginary librarian (that Mommy is so polite!), and handed the book back to me.
"Shaelyn, you were so good today. You can look at it in the car on the way home."
This time, when she grabbed my hand for the trek across the parking lot, I didn't fight her.
In fact, I hoped she wouldn't let go.
