Thomas

Thomas enjoys living in an imaginary world, populated by imaginext people with a few dragons thrown in for good measure. And dinosaurs. That fly.

Jonathan, in his eternal quest for a playmate, often induces Thomas to play with him, and then directs the imaginary world himself. But if Jonathan is busy with another friend, I'll often find Thomas playing quietly with his toys and himself. Sometimes he fusses about quiet time, but I have to wonder if it is just on principle! Quiet time is when he gets space and time to himself, just for dreaming.

Thomas enjoys playing with Duplo and the occasional Lego pieces, but his play doesn't revolve around building things. Instead of building airplanes and boats and forts and castles, he builds small houses and carefully populates them with people. (And dinosaurs.) Every creation has a story attached.

He will sit for very long periods of time, moving his people in and out of cars, setting up scenes, and doing the talking for every character in his little drama. "Ok, now you get into the car. Ok. Bring me the gun. Thanks. Ok, now we'll go fight the bad guy. You go around with the gun. Ok."



Thomas does a truly remarkable impression of a non-communicative teenager. He has a way of lowering his chin, raising his shoulders in a shrug, and grunting. He does this when he's upset/angry, or upset/sad, or upset/...playing a trick on me. Yesterday he was sitting alone, looking very sad and disgruntled about something. I came over and tried to give him a hug, asking "Thomas, are you ok?" *shrug* "Are you sad about something?" *grunt/shrug* "I'd like to help you, but you'll have to talk to me so I know what to do." At which point he slyly looked up at me out of the corner of his eye and grinned. Little charlatan!!!