Wednesday, February 20, 2008

kindergarten semiotics

Have I ever told you about baby puppy? It's a game where Ezra is always the mama and Levi is always the baby, and neither of them does anything remotely dog-like. In fact, neither of them really does anything. Mostly it's a game about establishing the rules to the game.

Ezra will say, "Let's pretend you were afraid of the dark and so I had to hold your hand."

And Levi will say, "Yeah, and let's pretend I wanted something to eat but didn't know how to feed myself yet."

And Ezra will say, "Right. And you were thirsty too."

And Levi will say, "Yeah, and I only liked milk. From a sippy cup."

And on and on it goes.

So the other morning they were playing baby puppy, and Levi pointed to his panda bear and said, "And let's pretend I was trying to get my bear to talk to me."

Ignoring the premise of the game--the premise, again, being that you are never supposed to get around to playing the game--Ezra said, in as maternal a voice as he could muster, "That bear doesn't talk, Baby. It's just a symbol."

And then they took a break to read Roland Barthes.

3 comments:

Kate said...

You make me laugh every day!

zen said...

Ha! That's a hoot!

I remember at a friends house talking with the dad in the kitchen and his two girls came in and said to him "Daddy, will you play a game with us?" He said "No, i'm talking to my friend."

"That's 10 points off!" one girl practically screamed. The other girl was a little more sympathetic, "Daddy, you're never going to win that way!"

Nichole said...

I can't wait for my little guys to be old enough to play together.