But What Does She Say?

Right now we are smack dab in the middle of a phase with Owen, in which he anthropomorphizes every single object.  Which wouldn’t be so bad, really, except that he insists that we “do” the voices of the object or animal.  Pretty much non-stop.

So for example, he’ll come downstairs after his bath and freshly ensconced in footie pajamas to pick a stuffed animal (or “pet” as he calls them) to sleep with that night.  First up:  I’m instructed to make all the animals clamor, pick me!  I do.  It’s easier, trust me.  Then as we walk upstairs, Owen clutching the lucky chosen pet, he’ll ask, “And what does the cat say once I’ve chosen her?”  And believe me, I can’t just answer:  “she’s happy,” because if I do that he’ll remonstrate, “No, but what does she saaaaaaaayyyy?”  He’s not happy unless I use exact words – although thankfully enough, we don’t have to use funny voices. 

He’s also always asking us to give a narrative of what our real pets are saying about any given topic – although I suppose this one is more our fault for giving our pets speaking voices in the first place.  Since Owen has no siblings to rival against, he likes to make sure that the animals can appreciate/envy what he has or is doing.  He’ll say, “What does Posy say about the fact that I have all these Star Wars cars and made a track from them?”  To which my inside voice replies, NOTHING!  POSY COULDN’T CARE LESS ABOUT YOUR PLASTIC OBJECTS! But to which my outside  voice has to reply, “Owen is so lucky he has all those cars!  I wish I had cars.”  And then sometimes I’ll entertain myself by making Posy say, “But I’m going to take them all when he’s at school.”  And then I get him all worried.  J

On the whole, I am glad he is imaginative, and some of the “conversations” he has with the objects can be pretty funny.  And I like that he’ll always answer right back to the voice as if he is talking to the object itself, and ignoring the ventriloquist, me.  It is also a good way of imparting information, because he will always consider what is “said” and then talk about it then or later.  Other times, however, I think, get this child a human friend, stat!