OK, this is one of those “Really?” moments. You know the ones, when you hear something a child says and you wonder if there is any way on Earth they actually said what you thought they said?
This moment happened on a playdate with one of my daughter’s friends, Lily. Let me preface the conversation by telling you, Lily is obsessed with Bethany Hamilton. She thinks Bethany is the bomb, and frankly, she’s pretty perturbed that she has to walk around with two arms when Bethany is so awesomely rocking just the one.
Yes, she’s pulled an arm off a Barbie or two, but aside from that, she’s pretty harmless and extremely smart.
The girls had just watched Soul Surfer, (which if you haven’t seen it, is truly inspirational) and we were heading out for FroYo when this rather dark conversation occurred.
Lily: (All smiley and chipper) Let’s pretend we both lost an arm to a sharks.
Ry: (Up for anything.) OK.
Lily: How did you lose yours? I lost mine in the middle of catching a gnarly wave. Maybe you lost yours hanging on your board watching me?
Is this conversation actually happening??? What happened to playing house? Should I look for some rogue My Little Ponies in the glove compartment?
Ry: Yeah, I don’t think I’d be hanging watching you while I’m inside a wave myself.
Lily: Fine, but pretend my arm hole was more infected.
Ry: OK, but my cut was deeper.
Lily: No.
The one time I don’t have a single McDonald’s Happy Meal toy in my bag! – Looks like I picked the wrong week to clean out my purse.
Ry: Fine, then mine is just a little worse.
Lily: No, mine is!
Ry: No, mine is!
Me: Girls, let’s not fight, you both can have really deep gashes where your arms used to be.
Well, there’s a sentence I never anticipated saying.
Lily: (Ignoring the fact that I just made it OK for both of them to have infected, oozing, flesh wounds) No, mine is like, this much worse *makes gesture with fingers held close together*
Ry: What? Huh? I didn’t hear you because the pain of mine made me pass out … and now I have amnesia.
Lily: I want amnesia.
Ry: Who are you?
I love that kid.
Lily: Why are we here in this hospital?
Ry: (Shows Lily her faux nub arm that’s tucked into her shirt like a chicken wing with just the elbow sticking out.) I think it has to do with this.
Lily: (Looks down at her own chicken wing arm.) Ohhhhh nooooo!
I don’t know what got me more about this unexpected pretend play: The fact that each one felt the need to one up each other, even though it was the most morbid make-believe session I’ve ever heard, the sheer creative brilliance of it, the elbow nubs poking out of their shirts, or the fact that as I’m writing this now I realizing it reads a bit like Saw IV?
Where are those slutty Bratz dolls when you need them?
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This is awesome. I am listening to my kids upstairs pretend that fighter-jets were bombing My Little Ponies and they all lost consciousness and when they woke up they were in Lego Land. You can’t make this shit up.
That is BRILLIANT! I love your kids and their use of multi genre toys in one game. That’s a sign that they are going to be genius’s or EVIL genius’s.
Pretty morbid… The movie about the amputee who lost her arm to a shark was pretty inspiring, but to pretend you lost your arm to a shark is a little sickening. What’s the matter with these kids…oh well, I guess the movie the “Miracle Worker” had children walking around pretending to be dumb and blind. Next time make sure your purse is full of toys that will change the subject.
Haha unfortunately some of the toys I have are missing heads arms or legs. Well, I guess they would fit right in.
My kids pretend to blow each other up, kill each other, eat each others brains, dismember each other. But they are boys. Who like zombies. In fact, they often check my room for zombies before I am allowed to get in bed. But they are boys.
At the very least it takes creativity. Anyone can play mom dad and baby, but who thinks to have their brains eaten by the dead???
This is probably what I was like growing up. Except rather than trying to distract me my mother would have encouragingly supplied more morbid medical conditions….
Too funny. I’m not gonna lie Danica, the other day I was at a Lego Park with my daughter and saw a lego deer with it’s mom and said, “Look it’s Bambi and his mom before the hunters killed her.” Soooo, I’m sure she comes by it genetically.
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