psychologist's treat

Since her surgery, E has taken up with renewed vigor the pastime of pretending to be a baby. She always says, "Pretend you're the wedding mom and I'm your wedding baby." So, recently she takes it even further back, adding, "and pretend I'm still in your tummy." The other day she had me talking to the wedding baby in my tummy, etc., and she mentioned that the baby was never going to come out of my tummy! I expressed dismay that I would never get to see my baby and she solved that by pretending that I could see through my tummy and she could see out. Pretty much anything she wanted to play was possible as she instructed me to pretend I was swallowing different things to get them to her -- like swallowing a dress for her to wear and a cradle for her to sleep in. At one point the whole living room was my tummy.

This morning the game took a kind of delightful, weird new twist. She wanted me to tell her a story about the Scooby-Doo gang as a family and she was their baby. Freddy was the daddy, Daphne was the mommy, Velma was the sister, and Shaggy was the brother. And of course Scooby-Doo was the dog. She, the baby, was in Freddy's tummy! (When she once insisted that she was present at our wedding, I told her that, in a way, she was, in both of our tummies.)

Furthermore, when Freddy announced his pregnancy to the family she added that the doctor had given the baby in his tummy a check-up and pronounced that this baby would NEVER grow up. The baby was SO tiny, and the whole family took turns holding her and rocking her and proclaiming their love for her.

hmmm... a form of emotional growing pains?