A snapshot of where we are in our collective understanding of what’s real and what’s pretend:

SCENE 1:
Emi (in the bath, placing plastic shapes on the wall): I am making a house for the giraffe!
Me: That’s nice, Emi – where will the house be?
Emi (pityingly): Mama, it’s JUST PRETEND.

A few minutes later:
Emi: I will live in the giraffe’s house too!
Tuck (sounding shocked): No, Emi, you cannot! You are much too big!

SCENE 2:
Unseen garbage truck, outside: Beep, beep, beep! Crunch.
[Tuck runs to the window and looks out for a long while. The truck is loud but can’t be seen. It is probably on the road down below the bushes behind our house, collecting the trash from the buildings there.]
Tuck: Where is the garbage truck? There is no garbage truck.
Me: You know, it might be down below the bushes. It’s not our garbage day but it is theirs over there.
Tuck: No! It is just a pretend truck.

SCENE 3:
Tuck and Emi are at their developmental preschool. As they have been doing for the last week, they insist that the teacher call them by their made-up names. These are “James” (as in the train, though Tucker adds quickly, “but I am James with hands and feet!”) and “Lady McQueen” (a combination of Lady, the train, and Lightning McQueen, the racecar from Cars.)

This has appeared to mystify their classmates, some of whom have developmental delays. One of them is a boy we’ll call Michael, who is very white (both culturally and in terms of appearance). He doesn’t usually talk much.

Teacher Brooke, patiently: OK, so you are James and you are Lady McQueen?
Michael: My name is Lakeesha!
[Adults laugh.]
Michael’s mother: Where is that from? We don’t even know anyone named Lakeesha!

SCENE 4:
Lately Tuck has enjoyed singing “Where is X, how are you? Say your name and we’ll clap for you!”, a song they sing at their preschool. He has sung it to all kinds of objects.
At snacktime, I decide to try this myself.
Me: “Where is cookie, how are you?”
Tuck: You can’t sing that to a cookie! A cookie doesn’t have eyes and a face!
Me: Okay ... can I sing it to Zoey or to Choochoo? They have eyes and a face.
[Tuck considers this.]
Tuck: No, because they can’t talk.