Not just the negative

In my last post, I lamented that Gavin didn't want to play with me anymore. Just boss me.

In my effort to bring "not just the negative," I thought I'd write to say that the very next day was a bit better. And it's been getting better ever since. We have actually played together, especially over the past week. Not as equals, mind you. I mean, he's still the boss (make no mistake). But it has been fun to join in his make-believe and actually have some of my game suggestions approved!

Just look what we've been doing:

Pretending his scooter was a bulldozer to push the blocks and pretending his arms were a crane to lift the blocks and build a building. All while wearing his "construction man" hat.

Playing pirate ship -- "Land, ho!"

The crane truck is towing the Lego car, so the mechanic can "take a look." Funny how after it's fixed, the crane truck still tows the car home.

Sometimes the little boy pictured helps put out fires, but mostly he plays on the ladder. There's our "control tower" in the background.

 It's been fun playing with my cheery guy. Don't get me wrong -- he still loves to say no and knows how to throw a fit, but I'm glad to have the bright spots of "play" as a part of this two-year-old cocktail again.

In other news...there's no way to know if Gavin had his first dream today, but there is evidence that he did have a dream today, and it's the first one I've known about. He woke from his nap saying, "Mommy, Mommy" in a whimper (not unusual). I walk in and he's still lying down (not unusual). He says, "Mommy, I want to hold a truck," in a sweet, pathetic, urgent voice (very unusual). I repeated his request to make sure I understood, and then not having a truck at hand, I offered a race car. He then started working his way to a standing position saying he was ready to get up. It's so cute to think of him dreaming about trucks. And I didn't need particularly well-honed dream interpretation skills to surmise that the dream was triggered by that morning's play date with a boy whose room is "car heaven" -- many plastic bins full of cars and a wall of storage cubes with large, realistic trucks and construction equipment. If that doesn't inspire a little boy to dream, I don't know what does.