In last week’s post, I Can’t Come to Terms with my Quasi-Teenage 1st Grader , I realized that my child is not the only child who’s 7 going on 17. I have to believe that the fact that my daughter and I are having these teenage sounding conversations during bouts of playing make-believe is a sign that she’s still a kid, phew. Though, I have to ask, when her favorite scenario is one where I’m Jay and she’s Gloria, is it a sign that her innocence is a distant memory?
For those of you living under a rock, that was a Modern Family reference. My 7 year old has Sofia Vergara’s walk, talk, attitude, and ditsy miscommunication down to a science. Of course, she expects me to play the reluctantly accommodating husband to her fanciful whims.
Other favorites scenarios include:
1. She is Gloria and I am Manny.
2. She is – insert girl name here, but assume it’s a name of some young chippie from the formulaic star making machines that are Disney or Nickelodeon and that within a few years said young chippie will be posing inappropriately in Vanity Fair or Playboy. Names may include: ie. Carly, Victoria, China, Rocky ect. –
Who will show boobies first?
I am to play the roles of the two cutest boys in school. Both are hopelessly in love with her and stammering while trying to get out the simplest of statements. (This by the way, is by her request that I stutter and throw in a sprinkling of “ums, uhs, I ums, wha’s, and duhs.”) She also asks that I sometimes faint at the sight of her and explains that if my characters were in a cartoon they would have hearts instead of eyeballs.
They (both me) are then required to fight over her in some manner and she has to choose who she will be with and whose life she will ruin, or she tells them both that she is moving to New York, knowing that with each passing day they will slowly die inside.
3. She is, insert name of the week here, and I’m a mousy girl who is amazed by her fashion sense, talents, smarts, athleticism, and humility. I simply want to be like her or be friends with her. She is so kind and tells me why I should like being me, then she even offers to set me up with a boy that I like, who is unfortunately already pining over her. This makes my date all kinds of awkward, and not just because I’m playing both parts, but because I have a one night stand and then I have to face me in the morning.
Relax- I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. I totally added the last part. Though my daughter actually did come up with a scenario last week in which she informed that she would be a girl in high school and therefore pregnant.
We hit the pause button on the game for just a bit that day.
Moving on…
4. I am a deprived British girl who lives in a hovel and signs up for a contest to live with my favorite movie star, who just so happens to be her character. Though I have a computer, I can’t afford a cell phone or email, which makes alerting me that I’ve won the contest a task in itself. Then when I get to live with said movie star (Yesterday, J. Lo) I do something rude or perhaps I faint too many times and find my prize taken away by my overbearing mother, who is also played by me.
5. I’m a street urchin who has never known a family or what it’s like to eat anything but paper. She is a beautiful, compassionate girl who takes me in and allows me to stay with her, much to the dismay of her evil sister, Delilah (also me) who likes to verbally abuse street urchins and physically abuse family pets and then release them into the wild.
6. She is a mermaid who I find living in my lake. She agrees to come live with me until my father (also me) insists that there is no such thing as mermaids and proclaims her tail to be nothing more than an elaborate costume. She then refuses to live with me because my father cannot come to terms with the abomination of nature that she is, or something like that.
To contrast the maturity in the content of these scenarios we can often play them out as Barbies, My Little Ponies, Groovy Girls, Polly Pockets, La La Loopsies, Webkinz, or any inanimate object that can be tilted as if talking. Yes, fingers, straws, and pencils are feasible candidates.
In fact, if you happen to be in a Grand Lux and overhear a mother telling her child about the stigma of teenage pregnancy using Wikki Stix, you might as well assume it’s me.
You don't get to go to parties when there's a baby at home.
