Real or Fake?

"I just don't get why the bees eat pancakes," Holden said the other day while reading the Bee Movie book. "Why is that monkey wearing shoes? That's silly!" He commented the other day while watching Dora. "I didn't think animals could gather sticks and set up tents," came during a reading of Camper Kim.

These observations strikingly contrast the steady stream of stories that come from Holden's own mouth. Did you know he has a City? It's called "My City," and we're invited there when we make him bean and cheese burritos, but not allowed when we tell him "no" after the hundredth plea for a special treat. My City has tall buildings, like downtown Los Angeles, and you have to drive for two days and go over 100 mountains to get there (which sounds a lot like a recent road trip of our own). Holden works there with his friends, but he doesn't live there because, after all, he's just a kid. He's very committed to My City, but if you question him about it, he's quick to tell you, "I'm just pretending."

It's got to be so weird in his little mind trying to decipher what's reality and what is not. For some reason, so much of what he reads and watches involves talking animals in implausible situations. Why is this? Is the idea that kids relate more to animals, or is it that they'll instinctively know it's pretend because it's animals who are doing it? Would seeing cartoon humans racing dolphins underwater or finding martians on Mars be too much of a tease, making it harder for kids to draw that line between reality and fantasy?

And what age does the brain register between what is real and what is not? The other day, while watching Dora and eating breakfast, Riley pushed his food aside at the mention of a chocolate tree. Holden and I began talking, jokingly, about how great that would be. Riley didn't get the joke and began wailing, "Chawclate tweeeee!" Funny and sad. It took some convincing to get him to keep eating his oatmeal and cantaloupe.

With Halloween right around the corner, we're now confronted with questions about the ghosts, witches and skeletons that people are decorating their front yards with. Holden pushed me hard the other day asking about ghosts - what they are, where they came from. Like all sticky situations, I tried to be evasively truthful, yet noncommittal about the subject. Of course, I told him, they're not real. But then, he hears from other well-meaning people, about people's ghosts going to heaven after they die. (Don't even get me started on that one).

Holden knows when he's pretending and what's real, but it's getting difficult to come up with new ways to tell him the truth about his world without kick-starting his imagination into places he really just doesn't need to go.