Baby elephant walking

Jonathan and I are having fun with an imaginary game these days. It came about as an attempt to save my ponytail and my back after several rounds of elephant rides. I asked Jonathan if he wanted to be an elephant with me. He lit up and said "Yeah!" and dropped down on all fours. Then he looked at me expectantly - what does an elephant do?

Well, I thought, first we can get a drink of water. I lumbered over to the blue playmat and pretended to drink. Jonathan thought this was terrific fun. He kept his eyes locked on me and matched me, slurp for imaginary slurp. I sat up and he copied me in that as well. I asked him "What now?" and he made his general "Huh?" sound. It was clearly up to me to keep this going.

After water comes food, I thought, and looked around for a toy food source. I decided the fireplace gate could act as tree branches. We crawled over there and I showed Jonathan how to strip pretend leaves off the branches and "eat" them. He started to make Cookie Monster sounds, but I told him we were dignified elephants, not noisy monsters.

We went back and forth from food to water a few times, and he stayed riveted through all of it. I thought our repertoire needed expanding, so I told him it was time for elephants to go to sleep. First I circled around on the rug - I know that's really a dog thing, but I am not up to date on elephant ethology. Jonathan managed to circle while whipping his head around to keep watching me. Then we did a big elephant stretch, and I plopped on my back, all fours up in the air. I lay there while Jonathan wriggled over on his back to get close to me. With each snore my legs went up - I figured we might as well incorporate a little abdominal workout in the game.

After sleep comes breakfast, and soon we were back on the food-drink circuit. All of a sudden, I stopped and said "Oh, there are lions!" Jonathan froze. He looked up at me, wide eyed, and breathed "Lidons?" I had thought that particular phobia of his was much better. I said "Let's go hide behind the chair" but Jonathan had other ideas. He curled into a little ball and held his hands over his eyes. I felt bad that he was scared, so I crouched over him and told him that Mommy elephants always protect baby elephants from lions. He relaxed instantly and we snuggled like that for a few minutes, until he said "Lidons all gone!" and we went to get a drink of water.

Now, every evening after dinner, he asks to play the elephant game. Sometimes the hearth gate is leaves, sometimes not - yesterday, it was ice cream. We compete to see who can make the longest and loudest slurps at the water hole. And when the lions come, Jonathan now sprints over to the toybox and selects a few toys that need protecting too. So I crouch over my little boy and his firetruck and airplane - it gets a little crowded. Jonathan has taken to calling himself "baby elephant" when he needs comforting or a cuddle, and he always smiles happily when I call him my little elephant. Alex may have supplanted Jonathan in his role as the smallest human in the family, but we've found a way for him to stay my little baby.