Make-Believe.

I had the privilege of hanging out at Riley's and Owen's house yesterday while Heather and Michael were at work. It was hectic. For example, by lunch, Rudy was nearly inconsolable (but sitting up!) on the floor while I tried distracting her with a unimpressive succession of plastic cups, Marley was literally bleeding from her lip, and Owen was stomping around and pleading (in Owen-Decibels), "FWENSH FWIES?" I think Riley was racing between the family room and the playroom with a series of dinosaur stuffies, and I know my mom came upstairs to take a shot of insulin, and presumably, eat something, but in the end, I was prompting her to take bites way more than I did with any of my other charges.

And yet, there were several shining bright spots in my day, a day that can best be described as chaotic, like look-up-CHAOS-in-the-dictionary-and-there's-an-actual-looping-film-of-my-lunch-preparations chaotic.

First, Marley and Riley did a lot of pretending. Riley just turned five, and Marley will be four in September, and they are at a hilarious age, involving lots of running around and screaming frantic make-believe directions at each other: "BEANIE! Pretend that I'm the mommy and this horsie is the baby but she's sick! And-" "YEAH! And then pretend that the dragon is over there!" "And pretend that we have to go down the slide to fight her [ho-ah]!" In the afternoon, they were racing around being Superheroes (Riley referred to Marley several times as Super Bean, as in "Let's GO, Super Bean!") and while I was folding laundry in the next room, I heard Riley doing a, not-surprisingly, excellent impression of a sick animal. Her elephants, horses, and dinosaurs are realistic and she commits one-hundred percent. So, she was moaning, and I imagine holding a stuffie and making it writhe all over the place and also sporadically interrupting this voice-over as herself, Super Riley: "What's that, Girl? You're in trouble?" And then I heard Marley. And I just know she was practically on her tippy-toes, looking anxiously at the stuffie and then at Riley and then back and shouting, "What's she saying, Riley? What's she saying?"

Second, when Riley and Marley were splashing around in the kiddie pool, they were pretending to be mermaids. While I was filling an auxiliary pool for Stella, the golden retriever, I overheard Marley yell that she was going to pretend to be a mermaid who died because the dinosaur got her. That was a little alarming. Died? But apparently part of the role-playing involved resurrection, because I also got to see Marley, and I'm not making this up, yell breathlessly and joyfully, her face tilted back to the sky: "I'm alive! I'm pretty!"

Third, there's this. It is so fantastic, you won't know where to look. Let me prepare you. Riley is in a music video, Owen is on the edges of a mosh pit, Marley is performing a solo in a modern interpretive piece, and about halfway through, Rudy realizes she's in the middle of a FANTASTIC dance party and appears to wave. I suggest watching it at least four times so that you can focus on each individual for the full twenty-two seconds.