Who Dat?

My day has been chock full. Dakota and I are on our own for the weekend with lots to do: some volunteer work in the morning, a birthday party at noon at the nosiest place on earth (feel free to use that in your next ad campaign if you happen to be reading this- truth in advertising is incredible), a movie at 5:00 and several stops and errands in between. We were doing more blowing and going than the snow machines at the olympics. But just because I was on my own doesn't mean I was A-LONE. I spent my day, in turns, with Catwoman, the Penguin, Batman, Joan Jett, a dinosaur and a vampire- and that was before lunch. There were brief moments in between when the real Dakota showed up but they were few; mostly it was a cast of thousands. And he moves back and forth between characters without telling you so without a program you are never sure who you are talking to, though he will let you know when you get it wrong.
The boy absolutely loves pretend; and when he's really into it he doesn't like people laughing because that means they don't believe it's real. He likes it to be as authentic as possible. There have been many times after seeing something on TV that he will come up to to me and say "Mom I have tape, paper, scissors and this yarn- can you make me a helicopter that can really fly?" When you try to tell him that won't work he always says "Can we just try?". Don't you hate it when you have to learn lessons from kids. Once he insisted I could cut out the heels of some tennis shoes, tape some Slinkies to the bottom and then he could bounce like Spiderman. You have to give him points for imagination.  He was very upset when I laughed but did manage to take it quite well when it didn't work (he is not spoiled or indulged in any way). All in all though it was a lot simpler than the time he folded his leg before putting on his pants so it would look like he only had one leg. Then he informed my I could tape and staple a stick to his knee and give him a crutch so he could be a pirate from the movies. He saw nothing difficult or painful about the idea of shooting staples into his body- he will gladly suffer for his art. Before you call the authorities let me assure you we stopped short of the stapling.
Dakota has the most vivid imagination I have seen outside of Hollywood movies. Sometimes it seems he has too much imagination, or perhaps it is just too frequently exercised. He spends a great deal of his waking time "pretending". But he is very good at imitating what he sees- whether from movies or real people. I must admit that occasionally it worries me that as he grows older he will lose track of what is real and what isn't. When I think about it, maybe what really worries me is that he will think that life is like what he sees on TV and he will be very disappointed when it isn't...or maybe that's not him at all. Oh well, back to therapy!
So, maybe I shouldn't make a problem where there isn't one yet. As long as it doesn't interfere at school or other places where he needs to focus and follow the rules, he can load up with all the extra people he wants. But next time we are not taking them all to the movies.