Jonathan loves to act! It’s lucky he has a drama lesson
in his kindergarten. Ever the performer, I find out about what is going on in
kindergarten, and what has been discussed through the songs Jonathan is singing
or his stories about the drama lesson. Recently he has and increased demand for
my acting and creative skills. One must wonder if the apple did not indeed fall
rather close to the tree.
The object of the lesson, its turns out is to discuss a
certain subject by telling a story. The story is to be acted out by the
children. Each child gets a role to play, some small, some more significant. Once
Jonathan played a door. He showed me an impressive imitation of closing and
opening, as he turned his body from side to side, hands close at his sides. It truly
was clear to me that here was a revolving door to behold. Another time he was a
flower, holding his hand on top of his head in the shape of a lotus bloom. Adorable.
Another time he claimed to be the star of the show by paying a bat…
Jonathan also likes for me to act out certain messages. He
has taken recently to discussing caries as he brushes his teeth (or rather I brush
them for him, his coordination still demands that I do so and I am told not to
expect to relinquish the role until he has reached the age of 8). Taking inspiration
from the famous “Carious and Backtus” book about the two little germs that cause
holes in a young boys teeth because he eats to many sweets and does not brush,
he want to know what the germs in his own mouth are going through and what they
have to say when he is eating sweets, or on the daily occasion when his teeth are being brushed.
And so, aside from the actual brushing, I have taken to
playing out the horror of the little bacteria as they are flooded with foam and
water and a zooming gigantic brush. Jonathan laughs his head off, especially
when I gurgle inarticulate sounds as he rinses his mouth (the germs cannot
speak articulately when his mount is full of water for obvious reasons…). In
fact, he has taken such a liking to the game, that when I recently has to wash
his head with special shampoo against lice, I was once again asked to
communicate what the lice were saying – as I was busy poisoning the parasites
on his head, I has no choice but to make choking sounds of various types to
represent their plight, much to the delight of my 5 year old son. Once again,
Jonathan was being inspired by a book. There is a popular book in Israel about
a small lice who eventually finds peace and affection on a bald man’s head – he
likes having her around because having lice makes him feel normal.
Acting is a mode of communication for Jonathan. He likes to
demonstrate rather than describe. If he wants to tell me of a cartoon he
watched on the television, I am soon surrounded by all the special effects of
the super heroes and sound of swooshing swords, as Jonathan fails to express
himself in words but rather chooses to try and act out the story to me. In the
age of digital photography, Jonathan, ever the performer, also likes to pose for
the camera. Documenting memories for him is thus not difficult, as the images
in this blog will s how I believe (although I refrain strictly from posing
images of my children in Facebook, until they are old enough to with it).
Posing as a muscular male or making silly faces to the camera is an often
recurring scenario. Jonathan always finds interesting places for silly photos,
like a pole in a train station of a niche in a wall he just has to stand in. Who
knows, perhaps his natural behavior despite a camera, and even posing for it and
courting its attention will serve Jonathan in his adult life…
Jonathan the model
Muscled boy
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