Alice in Wonderland

Playing Pretend

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Evie loves to play pretend. So much so, that the line between reality and pretend starts to blur a little bit.

At any given moment, Evie has assigned all of us characters to play. And I mean all of us, not just Sara, Evie, and me, but also Nala, stuffed animals, even inanimate objects (er, other inanimate objects besides the stuffed animals) in some cases.

It began with Alice in Wonderland. When she was going through her Alice phase, specifically after seeing the play, she assigned each of us a character. She was the White Rabbit, Sara was Alice, and I was (unfortunately) the Queen of Hearts. Not only did we have to answer to and address each other by these names, when called upon, we each had a catch phrase to say. Evie’s was, “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!” Sara’s was, “Curiouser and curiouser,” and mine was, “Off to the dungeon!” (In the play, they were hesitant to say, “Off with her head!” so the queen was reduced to “off to the dungeon!”

As I commented on a similar post over at Stay at Home Blogger:

It leads to such ridiculous statements by Evie as, “Alice and the White Rabbit are watching the Queen of Hearts put salsa on his burrito.”

It kind of takes you out of the moment when you are trying to be stern with her and she says, “No, I’m not Evie, I’m Smevelyn!” (My fault on that one, it was a name I used for a little girl in a story I told her…not very creative)

The problem is, that our identities change by the minute. I could be Geppetto from Pinocchio, The Man with the Yellow Hat from Curious George, or Mufasa from the Lion King, all within a span of an hour. In fact, even Evie has trouble keeping track of who is supposed to be who. The other day I overheard her having a conversation with herself that went:

“Evie, do you have a bumblebee?
No, I’m not Evie, I’m George.
Oh, excuse me!”

Although it gets old at times, quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I think an imagination extremely underrated as an important life skill. I think being able to think in that way will help you be successful, no matter what you end up doing in life. And I love that she will be able to entertain herself in this way. So in the meantime, I’ll put up with answering to Geppetto and telling her 50 times in a row that I’m glad she saved me from that whale.

I’m just telling you this, so that you can expect to have a new name assigned to you, should you ever come over to visit.

Alice

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Evie has recently become obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. She has 2 slightly different versions of the Little Golden Book summary of the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. (Kind of like a game of telephone, isn’t it? A translation of a translation.) It’s not all that surprising that she’s into it, considering it stars a little girl, a cat, and a rabbit; probably Evie’s three favorite things to hear stories about.

Imagine her delight when she found a copy of the original Lewis Carrol book on my nightstand.

I bought it at a used book sale some time ago, meaning to read it, but never quite getting around to it. Evie, however, was desperate to read it immediately. Sara and I figured that she was probably ready for chapter books and, though it’s probably not the one I would have chosen, it would do. So I started reading it to Evie before bed.

I’m not sure why Evie liked the book so much. She mostly seemed bored while we were reading it and asked for more pictures. Alice is quite a precocious little girl and most (if not all) of the story went right over Evie’s head. After we finished reading she would ask me what happened and I would try to summarize it in a way that would be more interesting to her. But every night she would demand that book, even when I tried to get her to read something else.

Now it so happens that around this time we stumbled across an Alice in Wonderland play being put on by the Chicago Kids Company. The timing was too perfect, so we had to go (in fact, Evie and I finished the last page of the book the morning of the show).

Tickets were pretty cheap, and, the day of, Evie and I were pretty excited about it. It was definitely designed for kids and was very interactive. There was yelling, counting, and even a dance section. During the dancing Evie mimicked Alice exactly, move for move. Because most of the theater was full of school kids, Evie and I ended up in the very front row. This was pretty cool, but maybe a little scary for Evie. At one point, the White Rabbit ran through the row right behind us and then down the stairs next to Evie and she about clawed my leg off trying to get into my lap away from him! Evie had insisted on bringing her stuffed bunny to the show, and, whenever the White Rabbit was on stage, she would hold her bunny up so he could “see”. Afterwards, the characters all waited out front to say hi to the kids. Evie was a little nervous, so she wouldn’t get too close, but she did show her bunny to the White Rabbit. He said that it looked like one of his cousins, and I think that was a highpoint for Evie.

I asked her what her favorite part was and she said the singing (it was a musical). She liked seeing all the characters she expected to see. The play was about an hour, and there was no question about Evie sitting still for it. She was enthralled and probably could have gone another hour, no problem. Huge attention span on that girl. (Side note: the theater company must have been a little leery about the Queen of Heart’s famous “Off with their heads!” line, because when it came time to deliver it, they decided to go with, “Off to the dungeon!” instead)

Since Evie’s main exposure to Alice was from the book and not the Disney movie (which she’s never seen), I imagine her perspective on the show was a little different than the average audience member. She kept asking for obscure characters like the Griffin, the Duchess and the Mock Turtle. Her favorite character in the book is the Griffin, which she knows has a “birdie face and lion legs”. She has decided in particular that the Griffin in Alice in Wonderland’s face is red, like a cardinal. She was not quite sure what to make of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. I seem to remember them being a big part of the movie, but they aren’t in the book at all.

Anyway, it was a great day and I’m sure Evie will be talking about it for a long time. Already she keeps talking about “when we go back” and who we will see (she’s hoping for the Duchess). She told me, “When I grow up and become a mommy, I’ll take you to see Alice in Wonderland!” Unfortunately, I forgot the camera and didn’t buy a shirt, so memories are all we’ll have.