(no subject)

[rivka]

Alex was playing with her stuffed dog, when, out of nowhere, she pronounced: "Unitarian-Universalism." So we had this conversation:

Me: Is Doggie a Unitarian-Universalist like us?
Alex: No, he's a Mormon.
Me: Oh! Does he go to Miss Emily's church, then?
Alex: No, he goes to a different church. It has "University" as a second name. He goes to the Mormon University Church.
Me: And that's different from "Universalist"?
Alex: Yes. It's "University."

Over the next several minutes, she shared some other facts about Doggie's religion: Doggie goes to church on Saturday. He has Sunday School at church, just like we do. Doggie doesn't go to church with us. He goes to a different church.

Understandably, we were pretty curious about what differences Alex perceives between Mormonism and Unitarian-Universalism.

Alex: His church has all the things that our church does.
Me: Does his church have a chalice?
Alex: Yes.
Michael: Do they say the same special words at Doggie's church? Does he sing "Come, Come, Whoever You Are?"
Alex: Yes.
Michael: How is his church different from our church?
Alex: Because it's a Mormon church.
Me: Is there anything that makes his church different from ours?
Alex: They have a smaller big church [i.e., sanctuary] than we do.

What I love most about these conversations is that they are so serious. When she's making up something wild (today's example: a snake who lives on Saturn, and built himself a house with a long tunnel that only snakes can fit through), her facial expression and tone of voice convey that it's all about having fun. When she spins a tale about her life or her associates, it's always in a very calm, matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Earlier this week, for example, Michael told Alex she would have a babysitter tonight. "She can't come on Saturday," Alex informed him coolly. "On Saturday Zoe and I are going to get a tattoo." She went on to describe which tattoo shop they planned to patronize, what designs they had chosen, and where they would have the tattoos placed. "Does Miss Emily [Zoe's mother] know about this?" "Oh yes. She's coming with us." All of this was in the same tone of voice that she would use to describe an interaction on the playground, or a trip to the grocery store.

Now that we've replaced our camera, I'm going to try to capture some of this on video. I ought to be able to get her talking about her imaginary job, which is what Alex has in place of normalother children's imaginary friends.

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

HEEEE. I love this. Especially the part about the tattoos.

Are you and Emily on comfortable enough terms for her to be amused by the Mormon Doggie? I hope so!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

You may be interested to know that Alex is going to have a jellyfish tattooed on her stomach, and Zoe will have a regular fish.

Are you and Emily on comfortable enough terms for her to be amused by the Mormon Doggie? I hope so!

Yes, we are. For the first year we were friends, we very carefully never discussed religion - but we're well past that now. Which is good, because we both have very church-centered families and it would be awkward if we had to leave all of that out.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Lovely!

Yeah, it's good that you can share those parts.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

I also love the tattoo.

The other evening, Elena informed us that she was going to work. When we asked where she worked, she said the library. (She recently got to visit there while I was working.) We asked what she does there, and her answer was that she pushed number buttons, and she needed to find her purse and her keys now. :)

I cannot wait to tell this to the children's librarian.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Tommy was a movie director when he was three. This morphed into, when he was twelve, him directing his brother and some of the neighborhood kids in a spoof of a Star Wars spoof (they'd seen "Hardware Wars") which they called "Starved Wars". He talked his brother (who is now a Marine) into playing the Princess Leah part. He edited in camera, which means each scene ends with Tommy whispering "Stop."

We carefully preserved the original, and now have about 50 DVD copies of it. When Danny brought four of his Marine buddies to our house for Thanksgiving leave last year, we had a showing :).

[platypus]

My brother and I used to pretend our cat had a paper route :).

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Be sure and get audio! One of my recurring regrets is that I didn't get a tape recorder into Sarah's room early on enough to capture the sounds she used to make when she was talking herself to sleep at night. This is before she had words. It was just this adorable nonsense. Oh, for a time machine!