imagination gone wild

Jasper is really, really fun. This is BY FAR my favorite stage ever with Jasper! He's a treat, an absolute treat. I haven't blogged much lately b/c I want to spend all my time playing with him and soaking up parenthood. He's just so sweet and attentive, he's totally all-boy, he's very energetic, he's always dirty and a little bit ornery. To sum it up in a word, he's just great! My newest favorite thing about this stage is Jasper's developing imagination! His thought processes and and vocab have developed from:

- mimicking (7 months-maybe 14 months)
   me- "Jasper, can you say 'momma'?"
   Jasper- "momma!!"

- identifying (14 months-24 months)
   Jasper- "helicopter! SUN! clouds! AIRPLANE! toes! ankle! POOP! HELICOPTER!"

- narrating (24 months-28 months)
  Jasper- "Da bulldozer goes push, push, push, push and pushes all da dirt up da hill and den da bulldozer goes backward, backward, backward.."

And now, folks, we've just arrived at the "imagining" stage. We've just recently arrived at this stage a few days ago, and while sometimes I'm caught completely off-guard, it's been such a treat! I never knew parenting could be so fun!

A couple examples of Jasper's imagining:

Wed eve as we were coming home from church, andrew asked Jasper who was in his class at church that night. Jasper said, "Joe was in baber's class!" Andrew and I cocked our heads as we're both going through a mental inventory of the church members with neither of us coming up with a "joe." All of a sudden, from the back seat, we hear, "BAH haha haha!! Baber teasing! Baber teasing mommydaddy. Dere's no Joe in Baber's class! Joe is in da playroom at baber's home!! Ahhahhhahha!"

OHH! you mean that Joe. Joe, the most annoying dog toy known to man. Joe, the dog toy that better be worth his weight in gold b/c we paid a fortune for him. Joe, the nemesis to my soul. Joe, the purple floppy screeching chicken. The Joe that I try to hide b/c I desperately hope Jasper will forget about him some day. That Joe.

I looked at Andrew and said, "Jasper's teasing us! Jasper's teasing us? Jasper knows how to tease us? This is fun!" And the rest of the way home, we all laughed and teased each other.

That was Wed night.

On Thur morn, I'm reading my Bible and having prayer time at the kitchen table while Jasper is waking up in his bed. Normally, he sings "Happy birthday to Ivee-bug" as he's waking up, but this morning, I just hear him laughing. Laughing hard. Like, deep, huge, out-of-control, I-can't-breath, type of laughing! It was so fun to listen to him laughing so hard! Finally, I went in his room to get him and said, "Hey buddy! I heard you laughing! What was so funny?" And Jasper, gasping for air b/c he's still laughing so hard, says, "Dadda's dwiving a robot!!!!" and he immediately flops on his back in a new fit of uncontrollable laughter! I said, "Daddy's driving a robot? That's what's so funny?" and Jasper, gasping for air, said, "DES!!!" (aka YES!!) as he's on his back, laughing and laughing and clutching his sides. I immediately started laughing with him, because, well, who could resist. And we started the day in fits of laughter. It was pretty great.

Then Thur, mid-morning, Jasper randomly, I mean completely randomly, totally out of the blue, came up to me and asked me, "Momma, can baber watch a bideo on da compuder of excavbatorororos wid da fire comin out da top?"
me-
blink.
blink.
then a little incredulously, I said "You want to watch a video on the computer of excavators with fire coming out the top?
Jasper- "des please, momma."
me-
blink.
blink.
Then, "um... sure buddy?" So we ran to the computer, cranked up old youtube, and sure enough, there are tons of videos of excavators with fire coming out the top. Who knew?

And it was at this moment that I thought to myself, "buckle your seat belt, Nat, b/c you're in for a fun and wild ride with this little one."