Jeff vs. Tyler

When my brother, Jeff, was little he had a ridiculous imagination. At his Kindergarten screening he said that his favorite food was, "dinosaurs, peeled, cut up, and boiled like his grandpa made them." He used to have a red limo that he parked under our pine tree that no one else could see. And he drove it to Fast School, which was called Fast School because he went so fast no one knew he was gone. And he had lots of stories about it.

But he's met his little match. Tyler's imagination is also ridiculous. And oddly similar to Jeff's. He's never heard these stories. But he has an orange car that he drives to work. And he has lots of friends at work. He tells us all their names and what he does at work. The work changes. But it often involves tools and fixing things. He likes to point out his building when we drive by in the car. And when he first told me about his orange car, he specifically told me it was orange and not red. Funny, when he didn't know about Jeff's red car.

Jeff also wanted to be a firetruck when he grew up. Not a firefighter. A fire truck. Tyler would like to be a bakery. Not a chef or a baker. A bakery.

Tyler may have him beat in the dress-up, playing pretend area though. When we were kids and I always wanted Jeff to play house he refused to be anything but the pet camel or the doorman. He was very difficult to play house with. Tyler rarely stops pretending to be something else. But there is much more variety than just a doorman or camel. Sorry Jeff. :-)

In the past few months his imaginary "friends" have included a deer, a wolverine, a goat, a wolf, and our friend's baby, Nora. He's been bringing Nora everywhere. He ate a whole meal with one hand, holding his other hand up in the air with invisible Baby Nora in it. He also puts her down for naps and makes her lots of food. Sometimes she even comes with us in the car. And he has told me multiple times to move because I'm sitting on her, and gotten upset with me for pulling his blankets up over her in bed.

He has to choose a different outfit for everything.

We told him about a chasing game we used to play with him when he was littler and he wanted to play. But first, "I need to put my game clothes on."

 

His bakery clothes. These pants are about three inches too short. I only got him to wear something else when we left the house because I told him we wouldn't want his bakery clothes to get dirty while we were out. That made sense to him. But the second we got home he asked where his bakery clothes were and changed back into them.

He didn't want a picture. But this was his pirate outfit.

This is a sign that I'm truly losing my mind. Because this was this morning and I can't for the life of me remember what he was. But it was funny enough that I ran to get the camera, whatever it was.

My personal favorite: The shepherd with dress shoes and a vacuum cleaner staff. It was very cute and sweet at first. Until he decided he was a, "naughty shepherd." That didn't go over so well with his parents.

There are more. So many more. He is something else everyday. At one point today he had on a super hero shirt with a cape, a neck tie and baseball hat. He also refused to nap without pajamas. I've lost track of how many outfits he wore today. We go through a lot of laundry at our house.

This is his grocery store. He loves playing grocery store at home. Where are all the books you might ask?

 

Oh, there they are. We have too many books.

And while I'm thinking of his most recent shenanigans, here are a few more quotes from church on Sunday:

He has it in his head that we have to go out to eat after church every week. We don't every week, but clearly we do often enough. When we left on Sunday he said, "I'm thinking about what restaurant we should go to. I think the pizza spot." We had left church late though and Carsten hadn't taken a nap and we hadn't packed baby food. I quietly told Carl it would be ok with me if they just dropped me off at home and went without me. But Carl didn't want to do that and said we could go out for dinner instead. Tyler's response: "I don't want to go later. I want to go now and be lonely." He would rather be lonely without me than wait to go later as a family.

I was working in the child care area of church second hour so Carl took Tyler into church for singing. He was explaining how he needed to sit quietly while they were in there. A little later Tyler very loudly asked, "Am I being quiet now?"

And when the ushers came around with the offering plate Tyler asked (also very loudly), "Is that guy taking that money to Jesus?"

Tyler, you're fun. We just love you. :-)