Althea loves pretending (or "tending" as she calls it). Sometimes she's a baby, sometimes a mommy, sometimes she's Speed Racer or Spiderman.Far and away though, her favorite thing to "tend" to be is the teacher. She will arrange a circle of "tend" preschoolers around her chair with very particular precision:
"Tend Matthew, you sit here. Tend Hannah over here. Tend Sophie over there."
She gets quite cheesed when I walk through her "tend preschoolers" or even need to open the fridge.
It's kind of fun to hear what she "reads" to them. If it's a familiar book, there will be a smattering of the actual story, but more often it will be a fascinating combination of exposition on the pictures and phrases from other books. One phrase that seems to appear in every book comes from Olivia and the Missing Toy: "Still, it was her favorite toy. So she fixed it, adding a bow for extra beauty. All better." You'd be surprised how often that seems applicable.
Recently, we went to a children's clothes store at the mall. Althea was delighted to discover a shelf full of books and puzzles. She started her teacher routine, while I looked over some nearby racks of clothes. I turned around a minute later, and a small crowd of other children had gathered to listen as she "read" about brave firefighters to them. (If someone had offered me a camera in exchange for my pinkie, I would now be known as "Dawn of the Nine Fingers.")
This past week, she came home from school with a book about Easter (and the events of Holy Week). I was surprised to hear some of the story:
"Jesus said 'This my food. Not your food! This my food!'
Then Jesus whined and whined and whined and whined."
The picture she was looking at was a depiction of the Last Supper. I can only assume this was her version of "This is my body, broken for you." and "This wine is the new covenant in my blood."
I explained to her, in basic terms, what Jesus said, and that he was drinking "wine" and offering it to his disciples. A lengthy discussion about a beverage called wine followed. Finally, I explained that Jesus didn't "whine," that in fact he was the bravest man ever.
Later that day, she was reading the same book, and this time it was "Jesus' follerers" who "whined and whined and whined." I had to laugh, but there was nothing to correct this time. I'm afraid it still tends to be true today.
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