My Puppy, Jack. Or Rainbow.

Holy Imagination Explosion. I'm not even kidding... forget every other time before that I said his imagination was incredible. THIS time it's insane.

He is constantly in another world mentally, fighting bad guys and imagining himself to be a super hero. Conveniently, he can transform into whatever super hero would be most beneficial at the moment. Currently, he is favoring Larry Boy with his Super Suction Ears, but also becomes Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Astro Boy, Flash, and sometimes Iron Man. He allowed us to create our own super heroes, and sometimes I'm Lavender Lassie and Fernando is the Eloquent Elephant. Violet almost always gets stuck with Cat Woman.

If he is not a super hero, he is putting on his backpack and asking us to join him "on an adventure". We hike mountains, swim through lakes and run away from swamp monsters. We usually save something from someone at some point, and take lots of breaks for pretend snacks.

Occasionally, he transforms into one of his two puppy alter egos. One is Jack, a big dog who runs fast and does lots of tricks. But usually he is Rainbow, a little puppy who likes lots of affection, pretend dog treats and loves to fetch an invisible ball. (I didn't make any of this up, by the way. It's all Daniel.)

We went through a two weeks phase where he wanted to 1) decorate and then 2) fly his rocket/airplane into outer space. He would enlist our help to paint the rocket, but then only he could sit in the pilot's chair. We had to sit back in the far back of the plane.

The bad side of his imagination continues to be his bad dreams. Whatever he plays/pretends/watches on TV shows up in his nightmares. One night after watching Horton Hears a Hoo and playing a few minutes of Angry Birds on his iPod, he dreamt that angry purple monkeys put him in jail and wouldn't let him out, and that he was crying until two of the nice angry birds came and took him back to his bed in his house. No kidding.

Anyway. I have a good feeling we aren't anywhere near close to the end of this particular adventure. I love that he gets complimented on his imagination. I love that sometimes you don't know if you are talking to Daniel or to a character he is playing.

And I love that he very clearly knows the difference between pretending and reality, and can make a decision which he'd like to participate in at that particular moment. (When our friend was visiting in town, he put on his dinosaur slippers for her. She proceeded to pretend that he was a dinosaur. But he said, "No Miss Stephanie, I am not a dinosaur. I am Daniel, I just have dinosaur feet on."

Love this kid.