I think I can officially say we are in production. Lorraine and I have sent several e-mails back and forth today about gaps in the outline and which puppets need to be made. That’s kind of cool. On the other hand, I played with my kid in the apartment and it looks worse than it did when we got up this morning. And, I’m not keeping up with putting away as we go along because I keep sneaking away from the pretend car/restaurant/dog run to check my e-mail and think about the piece. At the same time I was trying to be really zen about letting My Kid decide what she wanted to do and being her playmate since as a parent I have noticed that it has been a while since she has engaged with her toys and that imaginative play that is so important that I take studio workshops to do it as an adult. But the “play” that clowns do in the studio bears very little resemblance to my kid pretending to do the things I do which make me crazy when I play with her because I want to be going to the real store and really cleaning and going outside and running real errands. I feel like a hostage in her imaginary car under the table with the dolls in their car seats folding and unfolding the toy stroller again and again. Been there done that, don’t want to pretend today. I feel guilty. But, My Kid is at an age where she will watch the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon for hours on end and then talk like a sarcastic TV tween for the rest of the day. I don’t know which is worse. My Kid is going to be so dissappointed when she gets to high school and her campus doesn’t look like the Getty Museum with latte carts the way it does on Zoey 101. And don’t tell me it won’t happen. I was really traumatized when my first “real” job and life after college weren’t anything like the Mary Tyler Moore Show.