Recently, it has been becoming more and more obvious just how heavily Noodle has been blessed with a wildly creative imagination. I have been meaning to write about this for a few weeks now--- the way this child plays. Tony's mom said it is just like Tony played as a kid. He basically has two modes of play: Quiet Mode and Full Throttle. Here's a basic sketch of each.
When he is in Quiet Mode, he will sit and act out fantastical scenarios, mostly fight sequences, between the oddest pairings of toys. The other day Shrek was being mauled by one of the Lion King hyenas, but then Shrek made a comeback and fought the hyena off and somehow mightily tamed the beast through a thorough scolding, and then Shrek was able to ride the hyena like a pony. And yesterday I watched as be played out a battle royale between Spiderman & the Green Goblin (for the 208th time) with ghetto action figures.....the part of Spidey was played by the Spiderman Band-Aid box while the Goblin was played by the Spiderman movie's DVD insert. This one was a rerun. He's been carrying on with this non-stop since the boys watched Spiderman two Fridays back. The kid is so into Willem Defoe's Green Goblin, which is a truly great performance....but why do my children always root for the villains? Darth Vader, Green Goblin, Gaston from Beauty & the Beast. WTF? Anyway, don't worry, Santa has been notified of the need for some real action figures so the kid can put the tattered pieces of paper down.
And then there is Full Throttle Mode. This is when people end up hurt or in tears, something is broken, someone is in a timeout or occasionally all of the above. In Full Throttle Mode, Noah generally has two games he plays with himself. One is Hot Pursuit and the other is Narrow Escape. Hot Pursuit is when he is running at full speed from an imaginary villain (or more likely it's a good guy chasing Noah the Villain...hmmmm) while periodically dodging obstacles and shooting glances over his shoulder. Sometimes he thinks he has to sucker punch you while he runs past you as he acts out this scenario. He thinks you're stupid for scolding him, since you didn't get out of his way. And because his game is temporarily halted while he serves his time in the penalty box.
Hot Pursuit usually then melds into Narrow Escape, wherein he barely, just barely, escapes capture by either jumping from something he shouldn't be jumping from, sliding on his stomach under something not meant to have a child pinned beneath it, or by using another human as a crash-landing pad. And the sound effects! Oh they rule. Lots and lots of gasping and dramatic ugh! and oh! sounds. It's really quite cinematic. My favorite is Narrow Escape on Bike. This version always ends with a very noisy and spectacular bike crash that leaves him sprawled out under his bike and needing to pry himself free before crawling safely out of danger. Once during a heated Hot Pursuit/ Narrow Escape combo, Noah jumped off the kitchen chair and onto his bike seat like a cowboy jumps from the window of a saloon onto his horse's back. It looked so painful, but that little sucker just scooted away, gasping and panting and throwing glances over his shoulder at me.
And all I could think was, "Noodle, you are just naturally cool."
2 comments:
i love love love this story. but it actually made me a little sad that we don't live near each other. i'm reading this thinking you have stolen MY child. henry is so into spiderman and ohhhh! the narrow escape - we play that game too. the other day we were playing somewhere and he was pushing the toy shopping cart and stops & says to me "me potter" pointing to himself and the repeats it. then he pauses looks at me and smiles and then runs the cart full speed into the wall.
(if you're not harry potter fans i can explain this). although it did take me a second to get the connection. and my response was the same as yours to noah "henry, you are so awesome!"
i think our families would definitely play well together.
and that last picture - so good.
that last photo is pure freedom.
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