Dolls

I looked down the other day as BB and I did errands and focused on the two figurines he was carrying in his hand. He carries these things all the time (a little Darth Vader and a surprisingly butch-looking Princess Leia), to bed, to school, in the car. Before that, it was little plastic dinosaurs and even before that various favorite Thomas trains. But with the latest figurines, it's just so clear that they are his dolls. They've collapsed his prior attachments to objects and his now mostly gone imaginary friends into little humanoid creatures. They go everywhere with him and are incorporated into all of his play. They climb couch cushions, walk vast expanses of floor, eat with him at dinner, help him choose clothes in the morning. And they play out his fantasies, which at this point mostly include light-saber fu of various sorts. Right now they are fighting a big homemade snake in the family room, with crayons standing in for sabers (which were quickly lost). I assume they'll be slaying this dragon by the time we're ready to sit down to breakfast.