Emmet Squash

I told this story for my Facebook friends; I think my Blogger buddies will enjoy it too.  

To begin, I must tell you that Cora has an active imagination and will pretend along with any scenario Cliff and I make up.  We like to claim responsibility for this trait, but I'm sure there are others in her life who have inspired her to make believe.  Why, we've talked about her dolls as though they are real people since before she understood what we were saying.  I will say something like this to her:  "You need to check on Tooter; she cried all night.  I think she has a cold."  Or this:  "David and his sister were fighting while you were asleep.  You need to talk to them."

She knows it's all pretend, but she will take up the game and keep it going until she gets tired of it, or as long as we keep giving her ideas.  

Yesterday she and I were playing with the Pla-doh fun factory at the kitchen table.  At the back of the table lay a butternut squash.  The idea came to me from nowhere to get a marker and make a face on the squash, so without saying a word, I did that.  Cora was watching closely, and asked, "What are you doing?"

I held the squash-with-a-face up where she could see it and said, "This is Emmet; Emmet Squash."

"Can I hold him?" she asked.  

  For the next hour, she played exclusively with Emmet.  She put him down for a nap.  She took him to the doctor.  She tried to make some legs for him with Pla-doh, but that solution failed miserably, although the brown toupee we fashioned was a success.  We put the Pla-doh away and I started making spaghetti sauce for dinner, but she went in the living room with her squash, talking to him constantly.  She even put a diaper on him.

Unfortunately, the diaper didn't fit too well.  It was one that Cliff had helped her fashion out of a Kleenex and some scotch tape for Tooter, who is much smaller than Emmet.  

We have so much fun watching this child pretend impossible things!  It's heart-warming to hear her in the other room chatting with all her doll-babies as though they were real. her lilting little voice almost musical with animation.

She's strong-willed and stubborn sometimes, and a picky eater, but she is the best medicine two old retirees ever had.