Dragon eggs

Riley is having some conflict at preschool and it all stems from her active imagination. A few weeks ago, she and her friends Charlie and Audrey discovered a bunch of tiny little plastic balls in the loft at school. They decided they must be dragon eggs and started collecting them and hiding them in the corner under some pillows. A few days later they realized the balls were coming out of a stuffed puppy dog, so they started digging their fingers into the little hole and pulling out more and more balls. Eventually the teachers noticed and confiscated them. Herein lies the the conflict. Riley is certain they are dragon eggs, 100% certain, and there is no dissuading her. How do you get dragon eggs to hatch? Fire of course! She learned that from Harry Potter. When I went to pick her up a few days ago, she marched over and declared indignantly, (hands on hips) “The teachers won’t let be build a fire and they won’t let me take the eggs home! What am I supposed to do?? There are no other options and they won’t listen!!” Her teacher (who is a lovely woman) came over and tried to reason with her to no avail.

On the way home we made a plan… Any alternatives to building a fire? “We could cook them in the oven.” Um, any other alternatives? She finally settled on hot water. She said some dragons have already hatched at the preschool and we agreed that they must be invisible to adults, which is why the teachers don’t believe. Only if you really, really, really want to see a dragon will you be able to see one (very convenient, learned that from The Last Unicorn). Her plan is to hatch one for each kid in the class. Luckily, as soon as they hatch they fly to the kid’s home by magic, so don’t have to worry about dragons hanging around the preschool. When the dragons get a little older, you can put a clock around their neck and ride them to school. When the alarm goes off, the dragon knows to come back and pick you up. They know how to feed themselves, so they are easy to take care of. Riley is planning to write a book with 4 chapters to explain all this: Chapter 1: How to hatch a dragon egg; Chapter 2: How to take care of a baby dragon; Chapter 3: Things you can do with your dragon; Chapter 4: Important rules so you don’t get hurt.

[dragon eggs in hot water]

I’m not really sure how one is supposed to handle this murky realm where reality and make-believe mix. It doesn’t seem right to insist she is making it all up and it isn’t real, but also doesn’t seem right to fully encourage it. So I’m taking the middle ground and neither encouraging or discouraging, just seeing where it goes, and trying to help her have a plan for school that is acceptable to the teachers too.

This isn’t the first and I’m sure won’t be the last example of her imagination get away with her. When she built her fairy village, she put a little sign next to it saying, “If you are a fairy, please sign your name,” and she would check every day if a fairy had come by. If anything moved she took it as proof that a fairy must have been there. Whenever she throws a penny in a pool or blows out candles, she always wishes to see a real fairy.

Last weekend we watched The Last Unicorn, which is an animated movie that both Sage and I watched as kids. My memory of it is really vague, more of a feeling than anything else. After watching it, I realize why. It’s a very strange and dreamy movie, mystical somehow. Riley cried through most of it (but didn’t want to stop watching), and after it was over she went and sat on the couch by herself for a while and just cried quietly. She said she wasn’t sad exactly, just wanted to be alone a bit. That is exactly the feeling I remember when thinking of watching the movie as a kid. Later that day, Rachel came over for dinner. She told Riley she thought the movie was sad and asked if Riley cried. Riley thought for a minute then said, “I almost cried twice.”

Last night we took a look at the dragon eggs, which had been sitting in water on the kitchen windowsill for about three days. I asked her if she thought they had hatched yet, and she looked at them for a long time then said, “No… I think maybe they are just plastic balls. But at least we tried.”