The Schools of Soph

Last Thursday was one of those vicariously fun days of entering into and enjoying the goofiness and creativity of kid world.  My niece Polly--who is four--came over to play with Jeremiah and O.  Whenever Polly comes over, Soph--my eleven y.o.--has to get in on the action.  Better put, she has to run the action.  So, Speedy Gonzalez whipped through her school work so she could get on to the important stuff--playing.

First off, she dressed them up.  Here is what they came down in first:

Of course, she dressed O up as a girl.  I am not sure how she got him to agree to it.  Two seconds after I took this pic, he began throwing a fit to take it all off.

Next, O insisted I go upstairs and help him change into 'secret agent' clothes.  I am not sure why he thought he was going to be a secret agent, as no one else was dressed as a secret agent, but ok.  He did the 'fetal position drop' three separate times (a.k.a. fit) before I finally got his costume 'right'.  Here is what we ended up with:

Is that ridiculously boring or what?  Jeans, navy polo, hat on backwards, and nerf glasses.  But he is feeling mighty cool, can't you tell?

Daily, Sophie runs a 'school' of some sort.  Jeremiah and O are always the students.  Anytime Polly is over, she gets in on the action too.  Sophie's Art School is nearly a daily event.  She tried Sophie's Ballet School for a time, but her boy students were stomping around being noncooperative.  Yesterday, she had Sophie's Volleyball School.  One day she tried to get away with 'Sophie's Video Game Class' (I didn't fall for that one).  

On this particular day, she was doing 'Sophie's Performance Troupe'.  The dance troupe, starring Jeremiah, Polly, and O, performed to 'I'm Alive'.  Joshua, Wes and myself were the audience.  They sang and did motions to the song--well, that is everyone except O.  He stood very still and just barely moved his mouth as he sang.  Actually, he seemed to be concentrating so hard on singing the words, i don't thank he could get the motions in, too.  He was so serious.  He was so funny.

But here is the funnier part.  Ms. Choreographer, highly frustrated with his performance, gave out awards afterwards: 

  

Polly and Jeremiah got medals.

'Soph, what is that around O's neck?'

'He got the Cone of Shame, for not doing the motions right.'

Maybe I should rename her the Performance Nazi?

Obviously, O didn't seem to mind--he was perfectly fine with his Cone of Shame.  Here he is showing it off:

He wore it for thirty minutes afterwards, he was so proud.

I love, love, love when they play like this.  I know one day I am going to be so sad when they are too old to imagine and play creatively.  One day I will be sad when Soph trades in her 'schools' for make-up, hairstyles and such.  One day I will be sad when O can't drop down to a fit position in a second flat. 

This day reminded me to live each day fully in the moment...it's gone in an instant.