Isaiah the soldier

Isaiah has become really attached to my denim purse. No, not in the girly sense. For some reason, when he wears it over his shoulder like he is in the picture, he thinks he's a soldier of some sort. He puts it on and then marches around the house saying, "hut, two, three, four." He salutes at me when I ask him to do something, and he says, "Right away sir!" His amazingly vivid imagination was evidenced to me yet again today.

I had walked with Isaiah about 20 paces toward the church tonight when he just HAD to turn around and go back to the van because he'd forgotten to take off his PRETEND helmet and leave it in the van. Not a real helmet, the non-existent kind. I could tell from the urgency of his request that were I to deny this whim, it would be a battle ending in my carrying him the rest of the way into the church. Instead of fighting this battle (as I've probably done before with some annoyed comment like "we don't have time for your pretend helmet"), I walked him back to the van and smiled as he carefully unclasped the PRETEND helmet from under his chin, picked it up off his head with both hands, stretched out his apparently empty hands to me and said, "Mommy, you put my helmet in da van for me ok?" I think on previous occasions I probably have totally missed this moment, rushing to get inside, balking at the ridiculousness of opening the van again to put away a non-existent object, but today, I gladly opened the door, set the pretend helmet carefully inside, closed and locked the door again, and we were on our way. If there is anything I'm learning about being a parent, it is to slow down.