Playing

I love the sights and sounds and leftovers of children's play. But I don't always love to play with children. It's something I'm working on (with mixed success), playing more with my children. Mostly, playing with Henry. It's easy enough to play with Lily -- she's delighted with water-filled teething turtles and plastic keys. I can laze around on the floor, sputtering and smiling 'til she's ready for her next nap.

It's the wrestling, sword-fighting, pretending to be Zurg that are really...hard.
My most famous move is to fein injury in the early rounds and get out of the nonsense. (Poor sport? Indeed.)

But a couple days ago Henry asked if I wanted to play hospital and that sounded like something I could really get behind. So we did. Our living room became an infirmary and we nursed many afflicted stuffed animals. I just sat back and watched as paint turned into pill bottles, Bic pens became syringes, Crayola markers stood in for thermometers and Henry made little beds out of pillows and blankets for each patient. I asked Dr. Henry if I could bring my camera into the hospital for a few pictures, he said, "Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. And this time? Hmmm...I think you can." So I did.

Dr. Henry gave me detailed reports on each patient:

"This is Bob. He was up all. night. long. throwing up. He's really darn sick!"

"This is Moses. He has a fever."

And (my personal favorite), "This is Freddy. His tummy is really hurting him. He is SO soaking sick."

Soaking sick? I love it.
It was all very amusing.
And soaking cute.

Speaking of cute...look who's sitting up.



Sometimes. For a little while. With occasional topples.
Also, soaking cute.