1 Mother 2 Another

Maddie and Cora absolutely love putting
together long’, involved games that are played out in the
house over a several-day time period. Whether it’s an
elaborate, four-act show or a long, detailed mystery to be solved
by the Butterfly Woman and Whisker Girl spies, the games often
involve several rooms in the house, multiple costumes/disguises,
and a proliferation of props.


A week ago the girls spent a good afternoon putting together their
latest game – Pioneers. In our library they built a covered
wagon like no other I’ve seen. There was a baby doll cradle
and dolly – that’s Baby, who’s just been born but
needs to travel with the family anyway, because Pa says it’s
time to move. They had pillows standing up to outline the wagon,
with two chairs towards the front as the bench to sit on; a
freestanding drawer as their storage/kitchen table; and the love
seat as the back end of the wagon, padded down with blankets so the
girls could “sleep on the end of the wagon and see the
stars”.

And as the crowning touch, Maddie and Cora
brought over two pop-up tunnels to prop against the pillows and use
as “wheels”.


Inside the wagon, they’d neatly packed favorite clothes,
books, and school implements (“Even though we’re
moving, Ma says we need to keep up with our larnin’,”
Maddie intoned solemnly.) There was a stash of dried food, of
course, but no flashlight since it’s “not
period”.


Throughout the week, Maddie and Cora returned to the game, walking
exhaustedly next to the wagon, or curling up in it to sleep, or
singing songs on a rest stop, or making pioneer food by the
campfire. When I said one night into the game that it was time to
clean up – we’ve been working hard to clean up games at
the end of each day – Cora didn’t protest. She just
fell into my lap, crying silently.


So we kept it up. All week.


And boy, did we get our money’s worth on that. I loved
listening to the dialog: “Sister, would you please hand me
the cheese cloth for the baby?” “Oh, sister, I’ll
take care of Baby – you get some more rest. You were
gathering twigs for the fire all afternoon.” And of course,
the “pioneer” outfits were, um, creative, if not one
hundred percent accurate.


The wagon’s been disassembled with only minimal grumbling
– I think partly because they got so much use out of it this
week that they’re content to let the game die a natural
death. And they’ve already begun outlining a new game that
will center around Cora’s room, a ninja, and a butterfly.


It’s a new week.