Scene: Sitting on the floor, holding my sacred cup of morning coffee, staring off into the distance. Cole is sitting on my lap, petting the cat. Roark is nearby leaning on the chair.
Roark: (begins crawling around on the floor, brushing up against the chair) “Mamma! I am kitty cat. Meeeoooowwww. Meeeeeeeeeoooooooowwwww! Am kitty. Meooooow. See me mamma? Am kitty cat.”
Cole will spend long periods of time hanging out with his cars, driving them around, creating roads out of my arms, feet, the table. He seems enthralled in his little car world during these times, mumbling to himself, or sharing with me. “Car driving. Mamma is road.”
Roark, however, does not spend much time pretending. I had not really thought about this until this morning when Roark was instantly transformed into a cat. This may be the first time I have seen him venture off into the not-so-real. I wonder if there is anything to this? What does creativity as a toddler mean later in life, if anything?
I tried to think back to being young…was I creative when I was little? I was. I played with my stuffed animals and dolls. I played house and doctor. My brother and I invented whole other worlds in our backyard and the playground. I was older than the boys are now, but I spent a great deal of time in pretend land.
I also tried to think about when all of the pretending stopped. It doesn’t come naturally to me now – it seems like work sometimes to get into Cole’s little pretend world. Where did that kind creativity go? I enjoy writing. I love to draw. I like photography and nature. Is that where all of the creative pieces of me are now, or did they just shut down when I was faced with so much reality that I didn’t have any time for the pretend worlds of yesterday?