“I’m the restaurant.  What do you want for lunch?”

“I’m the baby spider and you’re the Mommey spider and we are at the park sliding.  You say, ‘Wah!’ and I say, ‘Ah, poor, Mommy.  Are you thirsty?’”

“I’m the big sister and you’re the baby brother and you’re sick so I will take your temperature.  Do you want a popsicle or pizza, little brother?”

I’m never myself when I play with Penelope – now almost four.  And I’m never in good condition: Always hungry, thirsty or sick.  Also, I always have to answer questions: Questions about what dress I like, how my tummy feels, and what I want to eat.

Of course I’m indifferent on the dress question, my tummy generally feels just fine and I’m not hungry; but this is play. Talking is play. For a girl.

In a girl’s hands green beans engage in conversation with carrots about purses and parties.  Ponies dialogue about their favorite foods and also where the castle is.  When Penelope sits in my lap her hands become baby spiders and mine become daddy and mommy spiders and there’s an exchange of a great many words: About the grocery store and the juice baby spider spilled there and also about getting lost and about me – I mean, Daddy spider – looking for baby spider and about the drive home after we’re reunited and what we will cook for dinner.

image

Sometimes we have to dress up before we can start playing.  Or maybe dressing up is part of the playing.  It doesn’t feel like playing. Many days my head hurts from Penelope’s thumbs mashing a clippy thing – I don’t know what they’re called – into my skull.  “There,” she says. “What color lipstick do you want?”

“I don’t think I’d like any lipstick right now,” I answer. “Thank you very much,” I say for the dozenth day in a row.  And then she says, “Do you want to play baby spiders?”

image

And I don’t. I never want to play baby spiders. I don’t want to talk incessantly about things I care nothing about.  I don’t want to be asked a million and one questions.  I don’t want to have a pretend stomach ache and lie on a bed pretend moaning from pretend pain while my pretend temperature is taken by a pretend nurse in clear high heels and I’m asked which princess is my favorite. And lastly, I don’t want to have my hair done while discussing cosmetics.

I don’t have ovaries. 

image

I want to pretend carrots and green beans are cars and smash them into each other while making freakishly realistic car smashing noises with only my mouth. I want to take the pony, tear its head off, hold it by its back legs and aim its headless body at someone while making freakishly realistic gunfire noises with only my mouth.  I want to do a jump kick off a piece of furniture and land on someone while making freakishly realistic swoosh and bone crunching noises with only my mouth.  And I want to not ask or answer questions while doing any of this. I want to not talk at all, actually.

But today, like almost every day for the last few years, I will in fact sit somewhere with a little girl on my lap pretending my hands and hers are spiders going to the grocery store because lady bugs are coming over for dinner and we’re out of macaroni and pineapple again.  I will do this. Because someday the game might change. Someday she might learn to roll her eyes and pretend not to know me when we’re in public.

Today, I’m Daddy spider. And I might even wear some lipstick.

.

Possibly Related Posts

Series: None
Tags: ,