From the Land of Make-Believe

We have arrived at the age of the Imagination. For the past month or so, we have seen our couch turn into a train, and we've had long conversations on the phone with Charlie Brown. We have strapped Winnie the Pooh into a toy stroller and taken him to the chocolate store. We have carefully wiped our teddy bears' bottoms, patted them dry, and wrapped them in real diapers that we ourselves do not wear anymore. We have eaten slice after slice of pretend pizza.

Come to think of it, I've watched Amelie's imagination slowly begin to bud and flower over the course of several months now. The more skillful my daughter becomes with the English language, the more intricate her world grows. The two forces - language and imagination- are expanding in tandem, as if sprouting from the same seed. And they are moving forward at a furious rate, like fast-growing vines destined to twist themselves around everything in sight.

I've said this many times during the course of Amelie's small life, but I'm saying it with even greater fervency now: I do not want to forget any of this. It's incredible to watch my child begin to make sense of her world by spinning stories around it. What a lush, crazy, wonderful garden the human mind is! We really are all innately creative beings. We begin as artists. Whether or not we are lucky enough to remain so throughout our lives is often another story.

My dream is to protect this fragile, golden kernel of creativity that lives within my daughter. Keeping Amelie out of school - all too often the land of conformity and lowest common denominators - might be one way to go about it. Is it naive to think this way? I wonder. It is certainly not conventional to think this way. And something tells me that's a good thing.

homeschooling
imagination
make-believe