School Time

This is a picture of Mikalya with her Numero Uno Playmate, Erica. She's my buddy, Lisa's, daughter - and I know I can speak for both of us that these two girls together are a very good thing. And when they are together, it's a lifesaver to us as they do a stupendous job of keeping each other happy.

One of the greatest thing about Erica is her great imagination. Rarely is there a power-play between Mikayla and Erica, but almost always, Erica is the provider of great play-scenarios - many of them regarding school. As you can see by the pictures, the girls are very detailed in how they conduct their school days - calendars, alphabet charts, weather wheels, color charts - they make them all (and usually because I'm a bad mom and throw them away they have to start all over each time - it gives them even more to do together, I say!) - and of course, bring all of the dolls out, as well as stuffed animals to serve as the class.

It's not uncommon to occasionally find one of the dolls sitting in the bathroom on the chair in there. Mikayla will tell me it's because she's in time-out and visiting the principal - because she hit one of the other dolls - and then I'll discover Baby Annabell now has a band-aid from where that child struck. Quite detailed, I'm telling you!

The carnal side of me can get easily overwhelmed with the messes of all of this playtime, but the soul side of me is delighted anytime I witness it. Michele and I still have folders that have been saved that we created in grade school of the elaborate class lists, field trip forms, homework activites, lunch counts, etc. that we designed in much the same way as these girls. (No, there was never a doubt what we wanted to be when we grew up). We had all of our favorite names of boys and girls who all earned A+ grades and all of the dorky names that were flunking out and forgetting their field trip forms. Ah, the memories.

Thanks, Lisa, for lending your little girl to help repeat some of those same experiences with my little one. What a beautiful thing!