28-Jun-08 - Playing John

Have I told you about "playing John"? We went regularly, at some point since we moved here, to two different churches in the area. At each one, Liam made an eleven-year-old friend named John. John Piper was Liam's first hero. For a while, he did everything like John. The striped shirt he turned up his nose at for weeks suddenly became his favorite because he wanted to wear "stripes like John."

Now, in our newer church, John Vernon has taken Liam under his wing. "You're my little buddy," he says in his South Carolina drawl, throwing an arm around Liam. At home, Liam and Parker take turns trying to pick each other up, saying, "You're my buddyyyyy!"

Lately they have been doing this thing where they impersonate their friends. Liam says, "My name is John Vernon." Parker responds, "My name is John Piper!" Liam says, "Well, then we haven't seen you in a while!" Eventually, Liam puts on his sunglasses to go outside, and then his name is Aaron - another friend, whose prescription glasses obviously fascinate Liam.

The other day, Liam put together his giant floor puzzle of different kinds of horses and we gave them all names and assigned each of them to one of our friends. Miss Joey had a Missouri Fox Trotter named Monkey Grass. Liam has a very prosaic approach to names. ("This one should be named grass, because he likes to run on the grass...") I had to work hard to get him to permit a poetic twist.

Heather had a Connemarra named Purple Mountain's Majesty (it is standing atop purple mountains in the drawing), Aaron had a Falla Bella named Twilight (purple background), and Torie had a Pinto (with a cactus and sun behind it) named Desert Sunrise. I had an Appaloosa that Liam grudgingly allowed me to name Applesauce, and Damian had a Morgan (drinking from a river) we named Waterfall. Dziadek's Lippizaner was named Fancy, and Babcia's Arabian was named Dziadek, interestingly enough. Liam and Parker both claimed the Thoroughbred. Can you guess what their names were?

Liam's was named John Vernon, and Park's was named John Piper!