Monday, February 25, 2008

Miss Linda’s distracted student

I sort of dread the day when Will stops making life at home a world of make-believe. He is always role-playing and asking us to join in. He’ll scold me for calling him Will after he’s already told me a couple times that he is Gibby, the dog. We spent most of this past weekend calling each other Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Brother Bear and Baby Bear in Will’s presence – or else getting scolded because we’d forgetten to use those proper names.

And yesterday Will decided he was a teacher as he sat on a chair reading books to me and Owen in the kitchen. Since I was just a kid now, he chose to call me Annie. (He kept having to tell me to "Pay attention!" as I busied around the kitchen, trying to multi-task but really just being an exceptionally lousy student.)

As teacher, Will called himself “Miss Linda.”

“Miss Linda’s a boy,” he said. And then looked confused. “Or maybe I’m a girl.”

“You could be Mr. William,” I offered (such a boring suggestion). “Boys can be teachers too.” (Granted, there’s no evidence for that fact at Will’s pre-school).

“No,” Will said. “I’m Miss Linda. Miss Linda’s a girl.”

And the lesson went on – interrupted only when ADD Annie had to be told to focus again. Or when Miss Linda stopped reading for a moment to check to see if Annie needed to go to the bathroom. (“There’s one down the hall,” Miss Linda said.)

2 comments:

shannon said...

Oh! What pleasure! This made me giggle. Nora was keen on playing restaurant. She'd yell, "Ma'ams! I need two turkey sandwiches, some hummus and an egg for the baby!" to some invisible kitchen crew she had when she'd take my order. And she'd always ask, "and wouldn't your baby like something, too?" talking about her little brother. I asked her what the name of the place (the restaurant) was once and she said, "um, Gobble".

Annie Addington said...

Tell Nora if she's got a restaurant named Gobble, then I'm pretty sure I need to start eating there. And I promise to clean my plate fast. (Do they have acting class in kindergarten? She sounds like she's got drama promise.)