Year of Writing 45 The backpack game.

2/15/12

Today after picking Isla up from daycare, I was faced with the same question I get every time I pick up Isla from daycare:  "Daddy, what game should we play?" Lately, this question only has had two viable answers:  "I'll be Isla but Daddy thinks I'm Bellatrix putting a spell on Harry Potter but I'm really Isla and I'm not magic."  or some other iteration with characters from either Harry Potter or Star Wars. These sound cute in theory, but after the third or fourth thousand time playing this "game," it just gets old.   The second game option is one where we take turns making up names for imaginary monsters and describe how they go about ravaging their prey:  "Daddy have you ever heard of a Margle fargle?"
"no, what is it?"
"A Margle Fargle is a monster that puts on a disguise of a banana, then when you peel it, it jumps out of the banana and eats you all up.  But not me, because I'm fast and I know good hiding places."

Now usually, this game is pretty awesome.  But today, I had already partaken in said monster naming game in the morning, and was feeling a little weary of the activity, so I decided to change it up a little.  My backpack was sitting in the space between her car seat and Miles, so I decided to start talking in the backpack's voice (which in my approximation, sounded a little like the guy from Crash Test Dummies)  Mainly the "game" now consisted of Isla asking the backpack questions about what it is like to be backpack, and the backpack (who's name had at some point become Jimmy) answering in a gruff, yet straightforward manner.   "Jimmy, what do you eat?"
"Oh, I eat lots of things, but I always end up being hungry after a while because people unzip my tummy and take the food back out again.  It's like every morning I get a whole lunch in my tummy, then your dad comes and takes it out every afternoon.  That's not really fair."
Isla started to quickly sympathize with this backpack character, and after fighting the veracity of the voice, settled into a sincere dialogue talking directly to the green and black sack to her right.  The game lasted the entire 45 minute car ride, and during that time I got to see how caring and thoughtful a person my daughter is.

When the backpack first uttered concerns about filling it's stomach with food, only to have it rudely removed every lunchtime, Isla sweetly implored me, the Daddy, to leave a few pieces of my lunch in the backpack so he wouldn't be so hungry all the time.  When the backpack lamented not being able to see what people were stuffing him with because of his severe lack of eyes, Isla offered to get out her paints and paint eyes on him - then continued by inviting the backpack to watch her favorite movie with her, so that he could finally see "something good in [his] life," even going so far as to say she would bring sunglasses for the scary parts.  After listening intently to the backpack detail the awful things that people have done to it over the years: throwing him on the ground, cats peeing on him, kids using him for a soccer goal, etc...  Isla had finally had enough.  She screamed out loud in frustration and said, "Daddy!  You have to be nice to Jimmy! He's a good backpack and I'm going to give him eyes and I'm going to take him to school and leave the lunch in his tummy and you can't use him any more if you're going to be mean to him.  You need to promise to be a good backpack haver." 

I promised, you better believe it.  That backpack sure knows how to advocate for himself.