Thomas

Have I ever mentioned my girl's imagination? I don't think that I have. Let me just tell you, that girl has a huge imagination. I'm talking colossal.

The Dancing Queen didn't really start to speak until she was 2 and had tubes put in her ears for the first time. But when she started speaking, we started to see her imagination shine through. For years now, the Dancing Queen has been pretending to be characters.

She'll wake up in the morning and declare she is Mickey Mouse. You can't call her by her given name. She will only respond to Mickey. Five minutes later, she'll switch characters, but not tell you until you use the wrong name.  So, I'd call her Mickey and she'd tell me "No, I'm Thomas!", even if I called her "honey".  For the longest time, she would just switch between characters, usually Mickey, Thomas, and Lightening McQueen.

One day, neighbors stopped by (neighbors we had never met). DQ was at the door and the neighbors asked her name. She responded, quite seriously, by stating "TRex". Of course, TRex was in the background yelling "No, I'm TRex!!!"  Our neighbors thought the kids were crazy, but I guess that is fine.

Anywho, DQ's pretend play has continued unabated to do this day. However, since last Halloween, she has become more serious in her play.  Last year, when we dug out the Halloween schtuff, DQ discovered TRex's Thomas the Train costume from when he was two.  DQ fell in love.

She wore the costume as much as she could, but if you asked her, she'd tell you she was going to be Elmo for Halloween (she had had me purchase said Elmo costume in August).

 

 

From that point on, more and more frequently, DQ pretended to be Thomas.  Mind you, she doesn't regularly request to watch "Thomas", but she pretends to be him. Constantly.

This year (when she decided to be Izzy from "Jake & the Neverland Pirates), as soon as the Thomas costume came out of storage, she jumped at the chance to wear it.

What's worse, she took her imaginations to a whole new level. At school, she wouldn't respond to her teachers unless they called her "Thomas".  (We worked on that.)

She had a homework assignment that included a segment on what she wants to be when she grows up. You got it, the Dancing Queen has decided she is going to be "Thomas". She knows he is made of metal, has wheels, doesn't eat, and can't give hugs, but she is certain that when she grows up, she will grow wheels and metal. Last week, she got exciting because she learned that she already had metal in her stent and mechanical pulmonary valve. She decided that meant she was half way to being Thomas! And she claims that she gets plenty of hugs now to last. And she doesn't care that he doesn't eat. (Probably because she doesn't either!) And she determined this week, that when she grows up to be Thomas, she won't have to wear oxygen.

It seems she's got it all figured out!  And I wouldn't dare squash her dreams (even if I have suggested a train engineer is a real occupation).  So, in twenty years, if you see a petite woman coming down the street, dressed as Thomas the Tank Engine, you'll know you've met the Dancing Queen.