Fletch

Lately, BJ's pretend play has expanded exponentially. He spends most of every day pretending to be somebody, or something, other than himself. Most of this play consists of doing the same things he usually does, only insisting that he be called by something other than his name. Which means he arranges and re-arranges his letters in the various alphabet games that he has developed over the past few months, and tells me that the alphabet belongs to whomever he is pretending to be.

If I slip and accidentally call him by his own name (which often happens) he immediately corrects me by stating who he is supposed to be. As in:

"Time for dinner, 'BJ'," I say.
"D," BJ calls back.
I then must say, "Time for dinner, D," if I'm to have any luck at all with compliance.

No, "D" is not another initial. My son has been spending a good deal of time pretending to be the fourth letter of the alphabet. In this game, he also usually insists that I'm the letter W. This comes from the D and W pair in the They Might Be Giants kids' album.

The list of characters to date has also included many from children's books. This week, he's been Christopher Robin, Tiddler, and Owen. Today and yesterday he was Chrysanthemum. "I have a very long name," he informed me. He also said, "I'm a mousie. Mousies are very, very small. They are too small to share."

Given our recent emphasis on the importance of sharing, especially with BB, it was pretty funny to see him say this with a totally straight face.

The other day, after BJ had told us he was Baby Bear, then D, then Christopher Robin, S turned to me and said, "Our son is a regular Fletch."

Which led to the apparently astonishing confession on my part that I'd never seen the movie. My husband found it almost impossible to believe that he's known me for nearly 18 years and didn't realize this omission in my pop culture education. I guess it's good to know I can still surprise him every once in a while.