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Return of the Jedi

Posted December 6, 2007

Guster loves imaginative play these days. I get a kick out of listening to him dictate conversations between his trains or between Snoopy and Franklin (his turtle).

There seems to be some confusion between what is pretend and what is reality, however.

I’m thinking that maybe he sees pretending as playing in general as opposed to pretending to do something.

Our Christmas tree is a good example of this one.

Gus, being the inquisitive two-year-old that he is, is obsessed with the tree and all its colorful ornaments and bows and lights and balls. It’s a fake tree, mind you, and it’s not all that heavy so it wouldn’t take much to knock it over.

We’ve explained this to Gus. Many times. Don’t grab and pull the decorations on the tree, buddy, we’ve said. That’s off-limits.

If I had a dollar for every time we’ve caught him red-handed digging in the tree, I’d...well, I’d have many dollars, I’ll tell you that.

“Gus, honey, stop grabbing things on the tree,” I’ll say.

“No, I’m just pretending,” he answers.

“Um, no, you’re actually doing it, Gus. You’re in the act of touching an ornament right now as I’m talking to you. That’s not pretending. That’s called reality and it gets you in trouble.”

He did it again the other day while playing some kind of game with Snoopy and Franklin at the kitchen table. The high point of the action, apparently, was to “accidentally” knock the kitchen chair over with a crash.

Game over.

“Guster, we don’t knock chairs over like that, please,” I said, picking it up off the floor. “Find something a little less destructive to play with, honey.”

“No, I’m just pretending,” he said.

Deep breath.

“Gus, honey. This is pretending,” I said, grabbing an imaginary chair and placing it sideways on the floor. “This is really doing it,” I said, actually putting the chair on its side.

“I’m just pretending,” he said.

“Do you know what pretending means?” I asked.

“Pretending is when you’re pretending,” he answered.

O...K. That explains a lot.

Another tactic he uses lately is what Rick and I refer to as the Jedi Mind Trick. Gus will be doing something he knows he’s not supposed to do, which results in the following exchange.

“Gus, don’t do that,” Rick will say.

“No, Daddy. It’s OK,” Gus says, continuing to do it as he fixes his hypnotic baby-blues on him. It's like, look into my eyes, daddy. Yes...look into my eyes. Forget about the mess I'm making with something I'm not supposed to be touching. It's all good. All is fine. Nothing to worry about. Noooooothing to woooooorry about...

“You see, I’m just playing. It’s OK,” he says.

Oh, well thank you for straightening that out, Gus, because I was sure wondering if what you’re doing were indeed OK.

Now I know, oh Jedi master.

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