The roles we play.

Turner is never just Turner. For the past few days, I have become so very aware that he is also a variety of superheroes, Star Wars characters, and various exotic animals. After our time home of being engaged in an activity always, Turner found himself in Tucson left rather alone to one chore: clean out your toy box. He's four. This activity has occupied him for several days as he "organized" his toys into these very neat bins (thank you very much Target). During this time of uncovering all the wonderful mysterious toys that lurked in his toybox, Turner has energized his imagination. He's been interested in Star Wars simulations for awhile, and I've seen and participated in many Darth Vader and Luke standoffs in the past weeks.
Friday, however, we had an entire day of role playing. I haven't done this since I was a kid and Andrea Maynard and I would pretend to be women who spoke different languages moving about the various sites within the confines of our neighborhood. We would talk and then translate our speech to each other. Friday, Turner was a monkey. We started this monkey business in Nashville with LaLa at the park. During our plane ride home Turner had a bit of a melt down landing in DFW and I distracted him with monkey talk. Being monkies returned when Turner and I rode bikes to the park on Friday. We arrived and walked onto the playground equipment to the "safety" of our "relaxation space." In the center, between the slide and the tic tac toe animals Turner and I had "refreshment" (water and apple juice) and "sustenance" (snacks). He spoke to me in "monkey" and I told him a story about when he was a baby monkey and loved to hide in the kitchen cabinets. When I accidentally called him Turner, our imaginative play was over. He grew quiet, and then
"Mom. I sure wish I could climb trees."
"Why?"
"Well, I don't know."
"Why do you think you couldn't climb them?"
"I can't. Kilan can. Todd is I guess the best tree climber."
We discuss for a minute who is better, Todd or Kilan. The conclusion is that Kilan is better because he is smaller and can, therefore, climb higher on branches before they break. Todd, however, is stronger because he eats more vegetables than Kilan does because he is a grown up. Turner indicates that he doesn't really like climbing trees, he just wants to be able to do it.
"Why?"
"Well, it hurts my hands."
"That is the bark. It is hard."
"Why doesn't Kilan think it is hard?"
"It probably hurts Kilan's hands too, but he just really wants to do it so he climbs the tree even though it hurts his hands."
He thinks on this. "Well, it sure would be nice if they liked to climb soft trees."

After bath time, Turner steps out of the bathtub. He has a pretend water gun in his hand (it is about three inches long and doesn't really shoot water). For the past several hours he's been pretending to be Woody from The Toy Story. I dry his hair and we slap some lotion on. In his room I ask about the kind of pajamas he wants to wear. He ignores me, sleepy from a busy day of bike riding, park playing, and water balloon fighting. I pull out his superhero pajamas. "All right Mom! Now I'm going to be Buzz LightYear. But first . . . " he pulls the fake water gun as though from his hip and says, "Check out my copilot. It's gonna take you down." One last gesture for the old, wooden toy who knew not that he would soon be replaced by the flashy new space fighter.