The Kipper Contraption

Almost everything lights a fire for Phoenix lately. Sometimes I find myself warily approaching a new book, wondering what impracticable enterprise (and mess) it will engender... And yet we read something new every day :)

And so it went a few days ago, as we read a recent library acquisition. In it, Kipper makes a contraption for his hamster who then rolls through to riotous laughter in our house. After two reads, P threw the book and his breakfast aside and tore into the playroom. He was determined to unravel each toilet paper roll in our house to achieve a comparable cardboard tunnel for a Baby Brother contraption. He then upended his drawers, tossing out object and calling out their new purpose in life. The machine grew and grew in his mind, with mini-BB swooping and falling and banging and rolling until he ended with a flourished fly into P's outstretched hands.

P, testing out the tunnel with BBB (that's baby Baby Brother) inside:


As he finished his toy tossing and his thingamabob description, he turned to me and said "Ok Mama? That's how it works. Now, build it!"

Structure has never been my strongsuit. A serious shortcoming in a sculptor :) And making a felt monster doll twirl around a rope into a jar that then sproings him out with bouncy cotton balls, well, I was pretty speechless. So while my mouth caught flies and my brain attempted to find the right wording that didn't include the words "that's impossible," P had a sudden salvational brainstorm.

"Let's use my beans to make the dirt and the mountains for my train tracks and build a forest from my blocks and have Baby Brother drive through it all!"

I could have gotten whiplash. This is the kid that Does Not switch gears quickly and will hold onto a preference or plan for forever. And he just gave me a get out of jail free card :)

So we shoved the contraption's contraband to the side and dumped beans and built forests.


Then Phoenix rubberbanded his tiny Baby Brother into one of his trains and took him through the mountains. When he wanted to use a different train, one that had no seat for a tiny rubberbanded monster, invisible BB filled in perfectly.



Then, as Hurricane Phoenix hit the forests and destroyed the train tracks just in time for lunch, P grabbed full size Baby Brother and bounced him over to the dinner table. I'm thinking we should call the kid Gepetto, he would so love his monster to become Real.