Two Obsessions

Elizabeth gets interested in things hard and fast. My Little Pony has so far lasted longer than normal (witness the epic saga that is Ponyville) -- and I'm not willing to give up on MLP, since Elizabeth recently told me that she wants for her birthday either a calendar or the My Little Pony Crystal Palace play set. There were times, long distant now, when she was into Kipper ("the one with the slipper"), or the Wonder Pets ("what's going to work? team work!"). For a while she liked Dora, then it was Word Girl.

Nowadays she still likes My Little Pony, but her heart is really with Turbo F.A.S.T., about a technologically augmented gastropod that races NASCAR-style. (F.A.S.T. stands for Fast Action Stunt Team; for some reason they didn't go with the more obvious Fast Action Racing Team.) Plus, she's very recently into Peter Pan, since seeing the stage production with Barb and Riley last Saturday.

Here's where we run into trouble.

I downloaded to my telephone a free kindle version of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. I told Elizabeth that it would have no illustrations, because the description of the book didn't mention illustrations. Normally, Elizabeth refuses to listen to books that don't have illustrations, but in this case she made an exception. "I'll close my eyes," she told me, "and see the pictures from the play."

Elizabeth and I were both delighted by Mr. Barrie's sprightly prose, hilarious characters, and by the surprising inclusion of illustrations! They looked old, so I'm thinking they were the illustrations that went with the original 1904 publication.

At some point during our conversation about Peter Pan, and school, I encouraged Elizabeth to look for a copy of PP at the school library. She was thrilled tonight to let me know that she got a copy of the book by asking the librarian at her school and being granted access to a book that kindergartners aren't normally allowed to check out.

This was a big deal.

Unfortunately, the book is a horribly abridged version of the classic original, which Elizabeth had been enjoying just fine. But once she got the abridged (and probably bowdlerized) version, she refused to go back to the original text. Mostly, her argument seemed to hinge on the fact that she had secured, at no small cost or effort, this rare version from the school library. "We can read your version on the phone any time," Elizabeth argued.

And I supposed she was right.  So I yielded and started reading the abridged version, suppressing my probably snobbish revulsion. And it was fun -- but not awesome, as Peter Pan is awesome.

Another obsession of Elizabeth's is the board game DixIt. Aaron got this one from his Mom for Christmas, after considering getting it for us. It's a cool game, kind of like Apples to Apples in that you choose a picture from your hand, assign a label to it (e.g., "Dreams of a Dying Star," or "Michael Jordan's sneakers," or "Happiness," or whatever), and the other players give you a picture-card that reminds them of the phrase you just uttered. Everyone but you then votes on which is your card. Hilarity and the racking up of points ensues.

DixIt in action, while Barb multi-tasks.

I like that Elizabeth is so focused on this one game, particularly given that she's not very good at it (e.g., she gets a picture of a giant looming over a city and her clue is: "Paul Bunyan"). What I don't like is this idea that there is only one thing, only one activity, and that everything else is lame. We've played DixIt now three night in a row. Elizabeth doesn't seem interested in any other activity.

Maybe it's time to return to Ponyville.