My kids are obsessed with mascots...love them...any of them. Disney characters, collegiate team escorts, symbolic museum friends - it makes no difference. Not only do they love them, but they have a somewhat warped sense of reality when it comes to them....like, for instance, they have asked me on occasion if Mickey Mouse is real. After much discussion, my son decided that Mickey in Florida is real, the one in California surely is not because he is red (the real one is black). He is just a dressed up Mickey. Hmmm? This happens all the time...is RallyCat a real catamount? Is Champ a real Lake Monster? Is Cinderella real? Well, she is because she is a person, she is not a character. Gus and Jacques, her mouse friends, now they are real. And on it goes. I am mildly embarrassed to say that I never correct my kids during any of these discussions. I know this goes against every parenting rule about perpetuating the lie, blah, blah, blah. It is just so unbelievable to me. I find it strangely innocent and refreshing and youthful. I just love it.
I would love to think that my kids will always maintain this sense of awe and excitement at the mere idea of "characters". I am beginning to see that my time is waning, though. My oldest son, who is 6, is really catching on....I took the kids to see Curious George this weekend and the whole way there they were talking about what he would be like, "do you think he'll be the real Curious George? Will he talk (like he talks anyway)? Will the man with the yellow hat be there?" The questions were endless. I didn't participate. I just let them go in the backseat chuckling to myself and enjoying the moment.
Well, I won't go into all the entertaining details of the outing...only to say that my youngest was in rare form - and there was a stage on which he could perform. I will leave it at that. But Curious came and made quite an impression. The kids got to hug him and sit on his lap, and hug him again and high five him. You get the idea. He was like any character you might expect...a large man dressed in a rather used looking Curious suit....but my kids were thrilled!
So, we leave the store and we are headed to our next event. We have been in the car with almost complete silence for about 15 minutes when all of a sudden my son says, "you know. I'm not really sure, but I don't think that was the real Curious George." I am dying. He's been replaying that whole thing in his head this whole time. Most people would probably let this go, but I'm like, "what? Are you sure? He looked like the real Curious George to me!" "No," he says, "when he moved his head I could see a little bit of a real man's neck." To be clear, it was not the fact that he was 6 feet tall and walked upright, nor the fact that he had feet so big they could squash my youngest child. Nope. It wasn't the screen over his face or the fact that he was mute. If it weren't for that small clue my sleuth of a son had uncovered, he really would have believed it was the real Curious George. Beautifully innocent or painfully dumb? I'll let you decide - and you don't need to tell me.
I think he is perfect either way and I hope they all keep believing.