Looking for Moses: Pooh, Lola, Buddy, Gerald, Piggie, etc..

For about 6 months now Makai is always imagining himself to be a character from a book to a character on TV. All of us around him are given our "assigned" characters and play along, even Pali and Sabbia.

His favorites:

-- Tom (from tom and Jerry): Today he decided to play Tom in the afternoon. I was in the kitchen and heard him "meowing". I found him on the dining room table walking like a cat on all four legs. He even pretended to lick his paw. "Tom not the table. Go to Jerry's house and climb the bed. You can jump there." He then climbed down and made his way to "Jerry's house" aka Mom and Dad's room on all 4's meowing.

-- Lola (From Charlie and Lola): He reenacts different parts of the books. Mostly pink milk, hopping into bed or hopping in general, and Lola's dress up characters, alligators, butterflies, ballerinas, bees. I'm always Charlie. Pali is always Sizzles.

-- Winnie the Pooh: I'm Christopher Robins, Scott's Tigger, Maks is either piglet or pooh, Pali's Eyore and Sabbia is Owl. We usually go searching for a bee hive or a pot of honey. Sometimes we even get a "balloon" to make the day more fun. He sits on the balloon when he's piglet. One day we were at the playground, he jumped off the merry go round and ran to the ladder for the slide. While running he said "The bees are coming the bees are coming! Hurwee Christopher Robins! Hurwee! Let's go to Poohs tree house!" He climbs the ladder as fast he can (which for him was surprisingly fast for him) hops up to the top and pretends to close all the windows and doors. There were a three kids at the top looking at him. He offered them his pot of honey (his hand) and they all looked at him and went down the slide. A week later we met some American's with a 3 year old daughter a week older than Makai. Odeah understood what he was playing and they played this game for 4 hours.

Another day we were at the playground and there was a little girl playing by herself. I asked him if he wanted to play with her. He said no I want to play with Christopher Robins. I said "that little girl is Kanga, see how she is jumping all over the slide?" He then ran up to her starting shouting Kanga Kanga! I'm coming! They played. Mission accomplished. Her name was Kanga the whole time. I don't think the little girl understood why she was being called Kanga for an hour.

Today he was the conductor from the PBS show dinosaur train. All the kids climbed to the top of the slide. He kept yelling ALL ABOARD! ALL ABOARD THE DINOSAUR TRAIN". Each time a kid wanted to go down the slide he would ask for a ticket. Not one kid gave him a ticket. He didn't care. He pretended he had claws to punch a hole through the invisible ticket. When they started going down the slide he would yell "TIME TUNNEL TIME TUNNEL!" Majority of the kids never went back on the dinosaur train. Poor kid. That didn't stop him from make believing!

His Israeli friends which he does have here play different make believe games. Maks and I meet up with them after their kindergarten lets out and he goes into his whole imaginary game. He's Mickey Mouse and everyone else has their own character. He starts it off. While he's asking them to chase Mickey and play soccer/futbol, they offer him "fake beer" and show him how to "roll cigarettes" using rolling paper and "smoke" them. He says "no thank you." I told Scott I was happy I didn't have to have a peer pressure talk at the age of 3 with the boy!

Oh and when you read a book to him, he will correct you if you don't substitute the main characters name for Makai. "No Mommie, that's not Trixie, that's Makai." "Makai goes to visit Oma in Boise." "No mommie that's not Oma, that's Woodstock". "Makai goes visit Woodstock in Boise. Boise is very far away..."