Imagination Education

It’s not looking good for us. We’re just a couple of good guys, minding our own business. Then along comes a pirate jaguar with his sidekick, the pirate bird. (The actual pirate being lost somewhere in the toy bin.) The pirate jaguar grabs a gun and sets off to fight the bad guys in the jungle trucks.

“But he’s just going to shoot out the tires so they can’t chase us, right? No one gets hurt,” I interject, ever the uncool, overly p.c. mom, even in the midst of imaginative play with my 3 y.o. son. He looks at me like, “Whatever, Mom” and goes back to making his plastic jaguar shoot at a jeep.

Welcome to my world.

There was a time when I used to edit out the references to hunters in “Horton Hatches an Egg” and when I let my toddler son think that squirt guns were hairdryers. There was a time when I was embarrassed about his aggressive energy and loud enthusiasm. (OK, that was yesterday.) There are times when I worry that all his games involve bad guys and gunfights. But mostly, I just go with it. He’s all boy, this kid. And if he wants to “pretend-fight” his friends on the playground or shoot at Matchbox cars with a block, who am I to squelch his fun?

Lately, though, Miles has been out-imagining me. He cooks up these elaborate adventures involving Batman and race cars and rocket ships, full of action and intrigue. And he usually wants me to play along. I’m good for a few minutes of this, but then I run out of steam. There are only so many car-chase scenarios I can come up with before I start plagiarizing scenes from “The Bourne Identity.”

What? You think because I’m a writer I should have a good imagination? There’s a reason I don’t write fiction, people. I stink at making stuff up.

C., on the other hand… The boys are lucky they have such an imaginative dad. Ask me to tell a bedtime story and I’m likely to launch into a barely modified variation of Little Red Riding Hood. But if you ask C., he’ll spin a wild, rollicking tale about Pierre the Snowboarding Penguin. Oh, the adventures of this little flightless bird! You wouldn’t believe it. I can’t say more, though, because the Pierre stories are copyrighted. C. has sworn me to secrecy.

Sometimes, I’m lucky and Miles will feed me my lines. Like when we’re playing his all-time favorite game -- Baby Animal. “Mama, you see this cute baby doggy in his basket and you say, ‘Hi, buddy, do you want to come home with us?’ OK, Mama? You say that.” Although this can get old pretty fast. Especially if I dare to veer from the script. Miles isn’t big on improvisation during Baby Animal.

Even though playing with a 3 y.o. can get repetitive (You want to play Construction Site? AGAIN?!), I know I should be glad he chooses me to be his playmate. The day will come soon enough when Mama doesn’t cut it anymore. Since I’m not ready for that yet, I’d better step up my game. Maybe I can go Google some scenarios for the pirate jaguar and baby doggy.

Say, they’re abandoned in the jungle and are adopted by a jolly bear. Oh, wait, that’s “The Jungle Book.” Maybe they’re stowaways on a freighter and get washed up on foreign shores. No, that’s “Madagascar.” See? I told you I stink at making stuff up.

LINK O’ THE WEEK: Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know about IMDb.com? The Internet Movie Database is the fastest way to look up the plot of any movie or find out the name of that obscure actor who played that guy in that one movie about that thing. You know who I’m talking about, right?