Call me Shaggy!

      The thing I love the most about children is their creative imaginations.  When you're a child you can be anyone or anything that you can dream up.  My four year old grandson Jr entertains us with many games and stories that he creates often using a combination of the real and imaginary world.  He can take a concept and expand on it until it shows up in different aspects of his young life.  The current creative spins all center around the cartoon Scooby Doo.  Jr adores this cartoon.  His mother allows him two hours of television watching each day and he always chooses to watch his Scooby DVDs.  Although not allowed to play video games he has taken to pretending that he can use his camera to play a video game of Scooby Doo.   His actions are so realistic that I found myself stealing glances at the camera on the odd chance that somehow he actually was playing a video game.  At a recent family cookout he assigned several members different character roles and encouraged us to play along with him.  I was selected to be Velma; he always keeps the coveted role of Shaggy for himself.  I secretly wanted to be Daphne but Jr insisted that I had to be Velma because I was smart like her.  The kid does know how to kiss up. 

        Knowing how he loved Scooby I purchased a Scooby outfit for him to wear to preschool.  He insists on wearing it as often as possible.  I guess his Shaggy character has infiltrated his preschool classroom as well.  On several different occasions my daughter has noticed the kids calling out "bye Shaggy" whenever Jr leaves for home.  Upon questioning Jr he informed her that he told the other children that his nickname is Kenneth but his real name is Shaggy.  His preschool class is a mix of three and four year olds with him being at the higher end of four.  The younger children idolize their older counterparts.  It was easy to sway their willing open minds into believing his name really was Shaggy.  The teachers were not as amused by these antics as the rest of us.