There Are Pretenders Among Us

Any of you that knew Darbie during her college years probably knows that she is a huge fan of the show The Pretender. Well as Jay has gotten older, I have discovered that, just as the show explained during the opening credits, "there are Pretenders among us". For the past couple of months, Jay wants to pretend like he is someone or something all of the time. It started off with him pretending to be a fire fighter, putting out fires all over the house. As he began to understand the movies and TV shows he was watching, he began to pretend he was one of the characters of the movie/show of the week. He first started by acting like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story II. I, of course, was the Evil Zerg and Jay always wanted to re-enact the scene where Buzz and Zerg fight as the beginning of the Movie. After receiving the movie Bolt for Easter, Jay always wants to play "Bolt Friends" which consists of him pretending to be Bolt, Darbie pretending to be his owner Penny, me pretending to be the evil Dr. Calico (note the evil theme) and Carly pretending to be Rhino (the suped up Hamster).

Lately, however, his pretending has become much more real life. For the past week, Jay has spent about 1/3 of the day pretending that he is me and making me pretend to be him. In his role as the "Dad", Jay leads me through the routine events of the day, mimicking my actions in each of the different situations. For example, Jay will have me act like I am asleep and then wake me up. At this point he will tell me "Now say 'I want a snack Daddy.'" After I follow that command he says like it was scripture and verse "No Jay, not until after breakfast". It is a fascinating way to examine our interactions from a different perspective.

Aside from using his ability to pretend for entertainment, Jay also tries to use it to avoid the rules or undesirable situations. Several times we have walked to the car and Jay has said "Let's pretend I'm the Daddy and you're Jay. I am the driver." Needless to say I only let that one work once before I caught on ;).

When it comes to meal times, Jay conveniently decides that I will play his role, meaning that I have to eat his lunch. One day, as I was pretending to be Jay, I said in Jay-like fashion "I don't want to eat my waffle, I want a snack!" Jay, playing a fabulous father figure replied: "Jay, if you're hungry enough to eat a snack, then you're hungry enough to eat a waffle".

To end most mealtime pretending dilemmas, I simply mention that if he is the Daddy, he has to eat Daddy foods. This takes him right out of pretend mode and right into eating chicken nuggets.

Jay's desire to pretend can get obnoxious at times. He gets mad when you don't respect his pretending wishes, making some of the daily fights twice as difficult. But sometimes his pretending can be pretty cute. For example, he likes to mimic our bed time routine. He will make me lay on the floor next to his bed, then he puts a blanket on me, sings me a song, and says "I love you Jay" with a hug and a kiss. Another memorable pretending episode occurred this morning. We were eating breakfast and out of no where, Jay says, "Let's pretend I'm Jesus and (pointing to Darbie) your a children and (pointing to me) your a children." I was a little uncomfortable when my child declared that he was going to pretend to be the Savior, but he pulled it off quite nicely. He came to me gave me a big hug and softly stroked my cheek (in the same manner Jesus does in many of the paintings with Him and children) and then he did the same to Darbie. It was pretty cute. I'm just glad to know that Bolt and Buzz Lightyear are not the only figures that Jay has learned about in our home.

I'm sure this pretending thing will taper off eventually, but who knows, maybe Darbie and I are parents of a real Pretender. (In which case we would of course "exploit his genius for our research")