Poor Eason....

I made muffins for breakfast this morning. Eason has recently become fond of Ada's play kitchen (now their play kitchen, but it was originally Ada's - an issue about which I'll wisely not blog...). He got down from his chair with half of his muffin in hand and started to walk into their room. I, of course, stopped him. (I have enough of a time fending off ants and fruit flies in the kitchen - I don't need the battle to spread to different fronts).

He collapsed onto the floor (I long, sometimes, to be two, so that I can collapse and it be 'age-normal behavior').

"Mama! mama! mama! Eason neeeeeeds to make muffins in Eason's kitchen and Eason does not have eggs!"

This gives me an interesting glimpse into the process by which people learn to solve problems. He wants to create. He doesn't have eggs. Rather than get the eggs out of the refrigerator and attempt to cook with them, he takes an already baked muffin to 'cook' it. He knows that the appliances in their kitchen won't actually turn on - that his kitchen has very little efficacy when it comes to producing anything actually edible. But he doesn't know it fully - its like his little wishful thinkings have not yet been fully divided from their reality. When I suggest that he cooks something, for real, in his kitchen (usually in response to a request that I cook something in the real kitchen that I don't want to cook....), he laughs at me. He says "Eason's kitchen not cook real food"

It kind of all makes me want to go back and study developmental psychology. It also makes me worry - a recurrent worry of mine - about the children who don't have someone talking it through with them. About the mamas who don't know to say or the ones who don't care to say, "Actually, Eason, you are right - you do need eggs to make muffins, but you're also going to need heat - which you don't have in your kitchen - after we clean up breakfast, let's make pretend muffins your kitchen - what kind do you want to make?"

It also makes me fall on my knees in the awe of how we do develop - how Ada Brooks not only differentiates between real and pretend, but can appreciate the humor involved in Eason's failings to differentiate. And how she also, on occasion, still collapses. It is such a process.

Such a faithful, providential process.

But this morning, in that moment, its just 'poor Eas buddy'(or at least that's what his sister says). I usually just say, 'get up...... ' and with an amazingly different levels of enthusiasm, depending on the moment, 'let's talk about it.'