Pretending to be Alice

Spring in New Zealand with a three year old

“What—what’s that thing with flowers? With laying in flowers? And has kitty cat and singing?”

It took me a minute to figure out. “Alice in wonderland?” I asked.
Oliver’s eyes lit up. “Yea!”

We had just crossed the bridge from the Botanic Gardens and the daffodils were in glorious bloom. It was intoxicating to walk through—the scent, the spring sun glinting off the river, the daffodil’s nodding heads.

Oliver ran to the river bank and dove into the mass of blooms. “Alice in wonderland lay in flowers,” he said, and rolled to his back. The white rabbit was next, he spotted it disappearing along the path and dashed after to find the rabbit hole. My husband and I smiled at each other and followed.

“Look!” I said, pointing to the branches of a hundred year old oak tree, “The cheshire cat!” It is easy to get caught up in his imagination.

We found a mushroom later, which was actually a leaf. “One side make grow BIGGER, one side make grow littler,” he said, voice rising and falling in turn, then proceeded to give an outlandish performance demonstrating the two effects.

We walked another few minutes, and he began to look around. “Where tea party?” And in the same breath, “Eat plates too, and put jam in watch.” He giggled. “Funny tea party.”

It’s now been four days since we visited the gardens, he has a lego scene set up as wonderland, and he has watched the movie every single day.
Today I showed him the pictures from that day at the gardens. He looked at them for a long time, then sighed. “Really like that park.”

“Would you like to go back soon?” I asked.

A smile broke over his face. “Yea,” he whispered, and threw his arms around my neck.

• August 26, 2013