"IMAGINATIVE PLAY"
by Charlotte Mendel
“Mommy, let’s play with Doggie and Miss Moo. You be Miss Moo.
Wearily, I pick up the filthy rag doll. I always have to be Miss Moo. If I try to pick up any other doll, it’s ripped unceremoniously from my hands, while my daughter’s face purples in fury. “NO! You be Miss Moo!”
She sticks Doggie in Miss Moo’s face. “Hi! I’m Doggie!” That’s often her only contribution. The rest of the skit is up to me.
I try to quench my boredom by repeating ‘Imaginative Play is GOOD for children’, like a mantra in my head. But I’m doing all the imagining. Doggie’s role, apparently, is to introduce himself and then wait for Miss Moo to plan their day. If Miss Moo fails to oblige, Doggie has a fit of rage and pummels Miss Moo to within an inch of her life. How is this developing my child’s imagination?
But what if all the other Moms are spending endless hours playing with their kids every day? Abbey − disadvantaged from the get go − will spiral downhill in her teens. I picture her standing before the judge in a juvenile court and pointing an accusing finger at me: “It all started when Mommy refused to play with me and develop my imagination.”
So I grit my teeth and settle Miss Moo on a piece of Lego. “Oh, what a comfortable chair!”
Expectant pants from Doggie.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Miss Moo says with fake enthusiasm.
“Yes!” says Doggie.
“Where shall we go?”
“You decide.”
I stifle a yawn. “Let’s go swimming.”
I propel Miss Moo around an imaginary swimming pool several times, Doggie hot on my heels. Tears of boredom spurt from my eyes.
“Now I’m going to sleep,” Miss Moo announces, stretching out on a Lego bed.
Three seconds pass. “Time to wake up!” Doggie shoves Miss Moo off the bed. While Miss Moo struggles to get to her feet, Doggie breathes heavily in her face. Is he concocting an imaginative sentence in his shaggy old head, by any chance?
“Do something, Mommy!”
I wrack my brains. “Let’s eat!” They both fall on their faces and make disgusting noises for five seconds.
I can’t bear it any longer.
“Mummy has to go and start dinner. You play by yourself for a bit, OK Abbey?”
I escape into the kitchen. Have I done my duty? Or is five minutes playtime insufficient to avoid juvenile delinquency?
Abbey rushes in and sits Doggie on a pan. “Look Mommy, Doggie is doing a poo.”
Thank God – a sign of independent imagination! I knew it! Behold world, a future movie star, prancing in front of a train of reporters: “It all started when my mother made up these skits with me…”
---
Ms. Mendel writes: "I have lived most of my adult life in Israel, where I worked as an Editorial Assistant in a publishing company and as a freelance journalist at the Jerusalem Post. Since returning to Canada five years ago I have worked as an Instructional Designer, writing production scripts on educational subjects. My fiction will appear in an upcoming issue of The Nashwaak Review."
---
PREVIOUS WORK
"CONVERSATION AT FOUR A.M." by John Goldbach
"QUOTEY" by Dow Ford
"THE LUCKY ONE" by Jerry Stamatelos
"POINTE DU GRAVE" by Nadia Brown
"SCARING THE GULLS" by Steven Gajadhar
ARCHIVES
HOME
|
