Wah-ken strikes.

I am in the middle of folding a mountain of laundry so substantial that I almost need a ladder to reach the top of it, but if I don't sit down and write this out RIGHT NOW, I'll forget it. Plus, if the laundry has waited THIS long to be folded, ten more minutes just ain't gonna matter ...

I've written before about Jones re-enacting scenes from things he's seen. Most recently, I mentioned his playing out the scene in "Cars" where Mack (Lightnin's hauler) falls asleep at the wheel and inadvertently ditches Lightnin', which leads to the whole Radiator Springs adventure.

Well, today, the boys were in the playroom, while I was summiting Mount Laundry. I could hear Jones reciting the same dialogue as I'd heard at Sunday's dinner. He'd throw in some nonsense "improvisations," as well, to "flesh out" the conversation between Lightnin' and Mack. Like any good Southerner, he knows the importance of small talk. Since he doesn't HAVE a Mack figure, I assumed he was just pretending to have one, like he did at the table on Sunday.

And then I went into the playroom, and what I saw made me SO PROUD of his imagination that I might just explode. He had put Lightnin' ("Wah-ken," as he calls him. He also calls things that are red "wah-ken," even though he KNOWS the word - AND COLOR - red). inside of the hauler that Sissy's family gave him for Christmas one year.

If you've seen "Cars," or, like me, listened to it from the front seat while your sons watch it a million times in the back, you know that there's a scene where Wah-ken is riding inside Mack - just like the situation Jones had ingeniously rigged up in his non-actual-Mack transporter.

When I went into talk to Jones about it, I said to the truck, "Are you Mack?" and Jones leaned down beside it and whispered to the truck, "Say, 'yes.'"

I'm not even joking. I have never been so proud.

Now, I'm not saying my child's imagination is any more vibrant than that of any other two and a half year old on the planet. I totally GET that this is what they're SUPPOSED to be doing, developmentally, but to really see it taking root in MY two and a half year old ... well, let me just tell ya: it was WAY more exciting than folding the laundry.

And at one point, Jones just laid his
head down on make-believe Mack,
as if he was a teensy bit road weary.