No Blocking, No Wimping.
That was (and may still be) the motto of the infamous Loose Moose Theatre Company, home of the much vaunted Theatresports.

Theatresports, for those not in the know, was a form of improvised sketch comedy, where a member of the audience would shout out a topic, or a genre, or even a household appliance, and the actors would create a sketch around it.

I was fairly active with Loose Moose in High School, volunteering there quite a bit, and even taking improv comedy classes, and going on stage for a couple nights.

Some of the people who were there at the time (I'm thinking Roman Danalo, of Comedy Inc. fame, and Rebecca Northam of Alice I Think) have gone on to be moderate Canadian comedy stars.

But from it all, one thing that stayed with me, was that if someone is doing something funny, you go with it, and keep the 'thread' of the joke alive as long as you could. If you cut them off, or tried to change the direction of the sketch, this was called 'blocking.'

Similarly, if someone presented you a golden opportunity to do something funny, and you either missed it, or saw it and were scared to go there (either because it was too racy, or too silly, or too whatever), that was called 'wimping.'

So 'No blocking, no wimping' was the motto.

Where am I going with this, I hear you ask. Well, tonight, Isaac and I had a 20 minute or so Improv session around his Cell Phone.

It started out with him telling Mom he was going to call the owl on the bird clock. Then he decided to call the Owl's Dad. Both were on their way, he reported.

Noelle needed to eat something, so I went upstairs with him, and then he announced he was calling Darren (a friend who was here over the holidays). One more floor up, and the fun began. He sat in the office chair, and I on the couch, and we played a little game of let's pretend.

"I'm calling Grandad, he's on his way." Then he would pretend to call Grandad.
"He's on his way?"
"Yes," Isaac would reply, "He's on his way from the Island."
Seizing the opportunity, I'd ask, "Who else is coming."
"The Owl."
"You should probably call the Owl Dad too, to see if he's coming."
Several pretend phone calls later, and Isaac announces the Owl's Dad is on his way, and now he's calling Uncle Jonathan. "He's on his way too."
Remember, no blocking, no wimping.
"Is he bringing pretzels?" I ask. What the hell, if everyone's coming, we'd better get some grub ready.
"No," replies Isaac. "We're having a tea party." He then makes a pouring motion with his cell phone, makes a slurping noise, and says "Thank you."

Then he announces that Grandad is going to work.
"He's not coming here"
"No, he's going to work."
"So, he's going straight from the Island to work."
"Yes," decides Isaac. "He's on his way."

Now you see what I have to look forward to. Years and years of increasingly imginative play. I already wonder where the boundary lines are between reality as he perceives it, and everyone else's reality. And frankly, I think that's great. 20 years from now, that kind of fun will cost him $400 an ounce, so why not enjoy it now.

I am, however, reminded of the cautionary tale about my dear friend Rachel Joo's daughter, Blythe. Rachel emailed me one day when we were expecting Isaac, and regaled me with the story of how Blythe had come up with a 20 minute monologue, about how her father was going to be late, because he had to fix the C-Train (Calgary's Light Rail Transit system). Blythe was about the same age Isaac is now, or so I recall.

Rachel was quite intimidated, or so I gathered, by the prospect of her daughter's increasingly life like imaginary world, and just what she was going to do with the little braniac when she got older.

I am starting to really feel such trepidation myself.