How I know soaps are written by six-year-olds.

Yesterday, after weeks of begging, Gracie’s friend A. was finally able to come over for a playdate. Thank all the gods of Child Play, the afternoon was all they had hoped (and we had bribed) it would be. Despite all of the games, the pretend tea party, the slip’n'slide and the fact that I got all of the dishes, laundry, and vacuuming done, my favorite part – hands down – was this:

Gracie, A., and Bee emerged from the front room where they had been playing behind the closed doors, marching slowly and pretending to cry. I didn’t realize at first that they were pretending to sob; I thought the girls had a falling out and one of them was coming to tattle. But then I heard one of them say, “I can’t believe she’s dead,” and the other wailed, “Our baby!” Heart wrenching sobs poured forth as the two girls marched towards Gracie’s bedroom and some mysterious official who was – apparently – going to confirm the identiy of their baby.

Not a bad way to be entertained while you’re loading the dishwasher, I have to say.

Gracie and A. soon came out of the bedroom with the baby wrapped in blankets inside an empty container that had been appropriated to serve as the coffin. “I…just…(sniffle)(sniffle) can’t (breath hitching) live without my baby!” Gracie simpered. Then A. quickly added, “Maybe (sob) she isn’t really ours. Maybe (wail)(sniffle) she is a different baby.”

The dramatic unveiling came next. The tupperware coffin was opened and the blankets ripped off dramatically (natch). Squeals! “She’s not ours!” Gracie exclaimed!”Let’s rescue her!” A. suggested! I could almost hear swelling music in the background.Then, right before my living room broke to commercial, A. broke the bad news, “But now she’s dead, too.” Gracie quickly manipulated the plot back to her liking: “I’m a doctor who saves the day now. Look! She’s alive forever now.” Uhhh…way to call dibs? But A. went along: “Oh thank goodness! We must save her!” Gracie grabbed the baby and threw her back into the…uh…coffin? baby carrier?…and suggested they run away. “Yes! Before the bad guys get her!” A. embellished.

And that’s when it happened. Gracie got a gleam in her eye, wickedly declared, “I am the bad guys! I’ve been trying to get the baby!” and the two girls took off running and screaming – one trying to kidnap the mistaken-identity alive-then-dead-then-alive-again baby and one trying to save it. That’s when I knew for sure that soap operas are really written by six-year-olds.

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Tags: imagination, pretend play