Bigger Picture Moment: Thankful for Imagination

I'm sitting on the kitchen floor, in what is very apparently intended to be a Doctor's office.  There are Fisher-Price-colored tools and implements strategically placed and readily available for the next examination.  My examination, it seems. 

A three-year-old physician enters the room on feet that march with purpose.  She tosses her hair over one shoulder and purses her lips.  Her stethoscope is plugged into the space just between her earlobes and her neck, and she approaches me diligently.  She places her flower-shaped tool on my clavicle, and declares my heart to be in perfect condition. 

That sounds juuuust, right.  Now -- we need to take your 'pretenture'.  Don't. Move.

The thermometer is jabbed under my right armpit, then my left.  She tries her very best not to tickle me, but I, as a patient, am uncooperative this morning.  I jiggle and squirm and laugh until she loses her professional composure and laughs with me.  Her head is thrown back with abandon, and her throat rumbles with joy.  Her bedside manner is somewhat relaxed -- a trait I find to be adorably perfect, if somewhat unorthodox.  After our laughter abates, we settle in for the next part of my examination. 

The ear check. 

Oh, the ear check.  The part of any Doctor mappointnest that strikes fear and loathing into the heart of my children.  I resolve to show no fear, though.  I will be stalwart when faced with the ear-probe, just to show my Doctor/Daughter how easy it can be.

Ohh, I moan, my ears huuuuuurt.  She composes her face admirably and assures me that she will find the cause of my pain.  The scope is aimed at my eardrums and....there.  She's found the problem.

Sigh.  You CAN'T put candy corns into your ears, mama.  They're shoved in there and get all crumbly and falling apart and...she reaches in with tiny fingers to fish out my misplaced candy.  I nod with relief.  Thank goodness she's well-trained to identify such maladies as these.

The other ear is relieved of its candy corn crumbles, and she shows me the proper way to proceed.  Candy corn can ONLY go into your mouth, okay?  Without warning, she places two giant handfuls of imaginary candy corn into my waiting mouth.  I am somewhat startled that the Doctor advises her patient to consume candy -- no matter how delicious -- that once occupied the same space as earwax, but...

She knows what she is doing; who am I to question her authority?  I chew obediently.

We move on to more important things.  Eyes are checked and declared blue.  Bandages are cut off and medicine is applied without regard for either mess or pain.  She is thorough.  Something every Doctor should be.

Am I all better now?  I ask hopefully.

She nods and considers my arm.  You're good to go.  Just...remember, okay?  For your NEXT Doctor's mappointnest, we'll take out all of your splinters.  I'll use my pink scissors.  That will be a GOOD mappointnest.  I'll see you later.

And with that cryptic promise, she marches away into the distance.  Perhaps to another patient's room.

Perhaps, though, she'll switch games altogether and become something else entirely before she reaches her bedroom.  She has no limits.  The world is full of ill-placed candy corn for her.  She has only to consider where she'd like to go next.

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I am thankful for play.  I am thankful for pretend.  I am thankful for Doctor's mappointnests.  I am thankful for imagination.  And I am thankful for being treated by the sweetest physician in the world. 

Bigger Picture Moments this month are all about Gratitude.  What simple things -- big or small -- are you thankful for?  Write about them -- photograph them -- poeticize them -- list them -- and share them with us at Lenae's place today.  Grab the button and enjoy this time of thanksgiving!