Today we went to Teardrop Park to play on the slide.

Lately Ana's been asking me to make a hopscotch grid every time we have a few minutes and a patch of sidewalk, so I made one but she didn't play. Instead I taught the game for a few minutes to a girl whose mother is from Canada. (I know because she said "grade two" instead of "second grade", but she also told me explicitly though it was really too late, I already knew.)

As I'm watching the kids, the woman jumps a little and mentions she saw a rat. A few minutes later some boys saw the rat. Then the woman sees the rat again. Then her daughter sees the rat. Then her son sees the rat, but he's only pretending. By now I'm staring all around to see if I can see this rat, but I never do. Various things happen, the boys attempt to chase the rat out of a bush. Rat, rat, rat.

And then Ana comes up to me.


"Connie! Connie! I saw a gerbil!"











(She totally saw the rat.)

So, as we left the playground we went to the bathroom.

Evangeline sat in the stall. Now, these doors go far down, it's hard to get the locks from the outside, AND they self-flush. So I left the door open. Ana comes in and she's "The DOOR has to be LOCKED!" and honestly, she's such an arguer. So she marches out again (it's an open-ish plan, so long as she stayed where I could hear her I was fine with this) and just as quickly whirls back in.

"I saw a police!" *whistlewhistlewhistle*

...

(No, seriously, she whistled, and even started cobbling together some form of tune. I just about died laughing - and when she asked why I explained it to her and she apparently had no idea that "whistling around the cops" is a major trope.

Gah!

Those of you with kids, or who teach kids, or who have ever been around kids, or who have ever even been kids may know that children like to imitate adults. It's a big part of childhood, and an important part of the learning process.

Evangeline likes to pick up discarded Metrocards and "swipe" them before ducking the turnstile. She'll even do it on the bus (putting the card at the dispenser, beeping, and then going to sit down) if there's no line and I let her. Ana used to do that too. The nieces both enjoy putting things in containers and declaring that it's soup, or cake.

This desire to imitate grown-ups and bigger children permeates everything. Evangeline is desperate to read why? Because Ana reads, and I read, and her parents and Nanen read. Ana likes to flip pancakes and head to the corner store by herself why? Because these are GROWN-UP tasks.

And of course, as they're young children, one important part of being grown-up, from their perspective, is taking care of young children. They ask me to put their dolls and stuffed animals "up" in various carriers. They buckle them into the toy carseat. They give them time-outs, and naps, and meals. They catch adults and ask *them* to play the baby as well if they can! And of course, they breastfeed their toys. Sometimes they bottlefeed, and sometimes they clarify that they're using cups, but quite often they put the doll to the chest and make lipsmacking noises to indicate that the baby is having milk.

It's really cute, too.

A breastfeeding-friendly hospital in England put up a poster that features, among other things, a toddler pretending to nurse her doll. Well, why not? It's cute! Awwwww! Who could possibly object to a picture of a kid pretending to be a mom like her own Mommy?

Why I even ask that question, I don't know.

It's offensive. It's unnecessary. It's wrong, disgusting, not normal. NOT NORMAL??? What could be more normal than a kid acting like a kid? What could be more normal than babies nursing - the same way the vast majority of babies that have ever lived have been fed? What could be more normal than any of this?

To my knowledge, breastfeeders don't go en masse to the toystore and take all the dolls with all their toy bottles and then throw hissy fits about how "disgusting" it is. So can the rest of you show them a little... if not respect, at least common sense?

So if you happen to think that the subject matter of the poster is totally okay (for crying out loud, the shirt isn't even lifted!), there's information on how you can write to the hospital to lend your support here.