The land of make believe...

Ever since Adam was little, he has delighted in having his daddy converse with him in various character voices. It started with Elmo, and has progressed to every character from each TV show and movie that Adam likes. Michael has had conversations with Adam as almost every popular children's character -- ranging from Dora & Diego to, most recently Wall-E. In fact, our babysitter took Adam to see Space Chimps and Adam told Michael that he would need to go see Space Chimps as well so he could "do Space Chimps' voices."

These various characters have been Adam's "pretend friends" over the years, but he has recently progressed to utilizing his kindergarten friends as well. You see, Adam will be starting first grade soon, and he knows that most of his kindergarten classmates will not be in his class. He's anticipating missing them, and so goes the following interaction between Michael and Adam...

Adam and Bella earlier this year.
Adam and I were playing this morning when he asked if I could do Bella's voice. His logic was that since he doesn't see her anymore, she could be a pretend friend now. I agreed, and began answering him in "Bella's" voice. He played a video game "with her" for a bit, and then he turned to me and said, "Dad? Could we pretend that Bella is real?"

I said, "You want to pretend that she's not pretend?"

"Yes," he said.

"You want to pretend that your pretend friend is not pretend?

"Yes."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I want to pretend that she's really here."

Shaking my head at this new level of play, I agreed, and continued to answer him in Bella's real--not pretend--voice.

We went upstairs after a bit, and he went to his room to play with Bella while I did some laundry. I was folding clothes in my room when he came in looking dejected. "What's the matter?" I said.

"Bella said she needs a break from boys."

I took a break and tried to help him. "Why don't you pretend that she's done with her break?"

"Dad," he explained patiently, "It doesn't work like that."

"Okay, do you want to watch a kid's show on TV while we wait?"

"Bella doesn't want to hear a boy's show."

"What does she like to hear?"

"A girl's show," he said. "Like High School Musical or Hannah Montana."

"Well, let's see if one of those is on," I said.

"I don't like those shows."

I decided to take a break from laundry and spend some one on one time with him. After a bit of snuggling, with heavy sighs from him, he said, "Can I draw a picture?"

"Sure," I said. "What are you going to draw?"

"I'm going to draw the pretend friends I would rather have come over next time," he said.