today was full of dramatic play: i watched my lovely husband flying a helicopter around the train set, making up stories with satine of how the helicopter had to make an emergency landing for maintenance, and satine "driving" the train cars out of the way to make room... them 'fixing' the helicopter and negotiating traffic conditions on the train set/village.
but that type of play is semi-regular now that she's getting older. what was different, or new, was the level of dramatic play she initiated with me, out of the blue:
she put her butterfly wings on and says: 'mom you cry an i fly away, o-KAA-EE?! (this is how she says ok, with an excited lilt and urgency to the 'kay').
What? "You want me to cry and you're going to fly away?"
"Yea, you cry an i fly away, o-KAA-EE?!"
"OK", i say, as i chopped the sweet potatoes. i was making dinner.
"Cry, mommy!" she calls from the other room.
i fake a cry. "waa-uhh-aah-uhh!... don't leave me, butterfly, dont' fly away!" i exclaim. she runs the circle from the dining room back into the kitchen, and then throws her arms around my legs, her face an utter delight. "Oh my goodness my butterfly's returned!" i exclaim, scooping her up and kissing her all over.
"OK, you cry an i fly way, uhKAY?!!" Her face looks like it is going to pop with enthusiasm.
"Buhuuuhhhauuaha..." i do a big, fake dramatic cry. Again, she circles the dining room. This time i chase her, but she can't contain her excitement and ends up turning and running back towards me. We hug and kiss in exaggerated delight.
"OK, you cry an i fly way, uhKAA-EE?!!" and we repeat the game.
And repeat again, with another variation.
And another.
I realize this is going to go on for some time.
Now the sweet potatoes are baking in the oven and i've moved on to the mustard greens in between tears and thrills of delight at her return. "Cry, Mommy, cry!" This time, i conjur up my acting chops and do a 'real' cry -- not so dramatic, so fake, but more of the soft, silent tears, the way it would happen naturally. Mainly because i figure it'll expend less energy -- this was tiring! -- and because, well, hey, to see if i still could. But because she is in the other room, she can't hear this or see the subtle moves of my body.
"Cry Mommy!" she squeals.
"WAAAA-uhaaaaahhhh-uuhhhaaaAAAAAAAAA!" i bemoan fakely. "Don't go, buttefly! don't go, come back...!" and within seconds she is back at my legs, her bright face beaming up at mine to say, "i've returned. here i am. aren't you so happy?"
now, the foreshadowing of all this is not lost on me. i flash to her first sleep over, summer camp, college, moving to the other side of the world to pursue a job, a boy, a whim, a dream, a life... when she will leave happily and i will be left with a gaping sorrowful hole in my heart, and her returns will get further and further apart. but i push that thought aside and continue the game while trying to get dinner on the table.
"Now you be da buttafwy an iw'll cwy, o-KAA-EE?!"
"OK." i say and put the wings on.
"Ready?" she asks. "Ready!" i say, and scoot off, flapping my arm wings.
she stands in the kitchen, her little plump body in that perfect toddler stand-slump, her head slightly bowed, and says with the utmost spot-on conviction and utterly genuine cry of longing and sorrow: {crying moan} "i waaant my buttafwyyyyyyyy.... i waaant my buttafwy...."
DA-YUM, i thought. She's good!
ok, maybe that's me projecting because i am (was?) an actress.. but i have to admit that it simultaneously impressed and terrified me that she may be a really good actor-- or more specifically, that she may want to pursue it as a career. and then all of my own judgments and disappointments about that particular business come tumbling into my head -- and i know i have to push those aside too, that this is merely a game of fun, that even if she DOES choose to pursue acting -- or whatever it is -- that i will have to contain my own worries or fears in favor of allowing her her own dreams, and mistakes, and success.
And so,
i stuff those thoughts away too -- but not before feeling EXACTLY the way my mother probably felt at my own choice to live on the other side of the country, to pursue a particularly... challenging... career in acting before giving it up --
and, with arm-wings flitting, i fly back into the kitchen, and kneel down at my little girl's slumped over body... and she hugs me.. and kisses me... and tells me she's glad i'm home.
xxo
