camping in

I went into Dennis' room and saw that he had set up his pop-up camper playset. The scene looked so inviting with the four vintage little people sitting at the picnic table while Batman and Fireman Sam occupied the lounge chairs. I had another longing for fall camping season to begin (even though we don't think our camper will be ready for a journey until nearly winter). Dennis must have noticed the dreamy look on my face as I imagined how much fun his toys were having at their campsite, because he asked "do you want to play camping with me Mommy?". I sat on the floor, about to pick up a toy when I realized that wasn't how we were going to play. He told me "here is our campfire, now I am going to go sleep over here" and he climbed into his papasan chair and commenced snoring loudly. I did the same on his beanbag chair. He jumped up suddenly and said "huh? What was that noise at our campsite?" (something I've been known to wonder myself when camping). Then we warmed our hands in front of the 'fire' and he said "oh no, I just burned myself--look, it made a blister" and I pretended to hold ice on his pretend wound. We roasted imaginary marshmallows on imaginary sticks (though I was tempted to get our new super cool telescoping marshmallow forks from the kitchen) and Dennis informed me my marshmallow had caught fire and I needed to blow it out. When I decided to warm my feet, he jumped up after a second, yelling that my toe was on fire and he needed to rescue me. He and Fireman Sam came and hosed off my toe, thank goodness. His imagination astounds and delights me!

Mine wasn't the only important rescue of the day. This morning our bathroom doorknob quit working. Dennis closed the door after he finished in there this morning, and when I needed to go I couldn't open the door. And I really needed to go, so I accused Dennis of locking the door before he closed it but when I opened the door with a credit card a few minutes later, I discovered that he hadn't locked it. It broke. An hour later, Gran got trapped in the bathroom and Dennis went to get his bike to ride to the rescue. He was so disappointed that I had already credit-carded her out when he rode up to the scene. Then he closed himself in there so we'd have to get him out as well!

He can now read the first four books in the first set of BOB books unassisted. I am so proud!