Thursday, February 16, 2012

In Character

One of the best things about living in a house full of nerds is continuing to be surprised by the ways my kids keep themselves amused.  When they were younger, characters or themes from favorite books would seep into their play, with Harry Potter being a perpetual favorite. It's cool when this still happens - any parent who has hoped to stave off the effects of media and middle school in the lives of their children would rejoice to hear their 14-year-old daughter willingly playing the part of Hermione with her 11-year-old sister (Ron) and sister's 10-year-old friend (Harry).  However, my favorite characters my children assume are ones they've invented.

There's the Ancient Math Teacher, aka Mr. Minus, and his two students, Bad Boy, who is not so much bad as stupid, and Good Girl, so genuinely pleasant and concerned when she reminds Mr. Minus to take his Gingko biloba that it's impossible to dismiss her as a suck-up. Good Girl arrives at her tutoring sessions with a huge stack of books, gets all the problems right, and is rewarded with candy; when Bad Boy misses questions he grabs at the candy anyway, causing Mr. Minus to wrap his shaky, elderly arms around the candy dish and pull it away, feebly crying, "No!...No!...No!"
  
Mr. Minus is such a beloved character in our house that my eleven-year-old tried to dress like him for Halloween a couple of years ago.  It might have worked better if I'd let her go to school with gray hair.  As it was, most of her friends thought, with her corduroys, vest, and boys' dress shirt decorated with equations and math symbols, she was going as "a geek."  I suppose they were technically correct, but still.

I was honored a few years ago when the girls began inventing roles for me, the least demanding being The Distracted Mother, which only requires me to keep doing what I'm already doing and murmur, "Mm-hmm," and "That's nice, dear" in response to Little Timmy's increasingly ludicrous (and dangerous) requests.  This usually ends with the arrival of the Teenaged Daughter, who jolts me back into the present: "Moth-errr!  You just let the Little Brat drive the ca-ar!"   I have to admit to occasionally being uncomfortable with how easy it is to play this role.  More challenging is the role of Little Sweetheart's mother, since Little Sweetheart is one of the most thoroughly obnoxious children in existence.  Unfortunately, it's impossible to duplicate her way of talking ("Don't mwock my aaccent, Mwommy!") but we have fun trying.

I can't pinpoint when I started seeing less of Mr. Minus and Little Sweetheart.  Possibly it had something to do with my older daughter's entering middle school, or maybe I can blame it on the Wii that arrived two Christmases ago.  It's probably more realistic to just chalk it up to normal adolescent development.  The girls' characters will still occasionally oblige me with a command performance, but I try not to ask too often and am just grateful that they enjoy being a team of two.  Recently they spent an extended weekend with my parents in Arizona and when they returned, they were addressing each other as "Darling Sister."  Not as exciting as Little Timmy playing with fire, but it's enough.

7 comments:

  1. Mmmm... yesh. When they are cooperating a little too well I secretly post robot sentries to make sure nothing happens to us in our sleep.

    Random thought: "normal" children text each other in the same room. Ours use sign language with full knowledge that this just is not going to be one of my strengths.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe I'm delusional, but I'd rather have them conspiring against us than tattling to us... of course, neither is of driving age yet!

      Delete
  2. Nice names. I was never that inventive and the names I would invent I would usually get in trouble ... now playing with fire!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I do wonder how they come up with this stuff sometimes. The "playing with fire" stuff I blame on their dad :-)

      Delete
  3. It's great having creative siblings. When I was 11 or so, I once spent an entire weekend with 1 of my brothers (got 5) and 1 of my sisters (got 4) building a grand fleet of boats/ships/barges from empty milk cartons and paper packing tape -- and then creating an elaborate shipping port for them in a drapes-drawn-darkened bedroom around and beneath the bowels of a set of bunk beds, desks, and a chest of drawers. All of this was initiated by the sister who had THE COOLEST, very bright desk lamp that we thought looked like a lighthouse lamp and that lamp needed to be somewhere. Doesn't take much, does it?! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's extremely cool! I love how an everyday object can inspire a huge weekend project. I think the most creative my siblings and I ever got was when one of us would pretend to be a rock, upon which the other two would spread out a picnic. Of course at some point the "rock" would rise up, growling, and chase the picnickers around the room. :-)

      Delete
  4. "Ohh... I don't remember if I took my gingko biloba or not... Get your hands off the candy! No, no, no!" -Mr. Minus

    ReplyDelete