Ivo: Wheels broken

Ivo's now Lightning MacQueen; dubbing Ryan "Big Lightning aQueen," Burl "Little Lightning aQueen" and me "Girl Lightning aQueen."

If you address Ivo as anything other than "Lightning MacQueen" he will tell you he is "Lightening MacQueen." You must then re-address him and start over. Same if you refer to anyone else as anything other than their Ivo-given-names. This applies if you call Ivo MacQueen or Lightning, rather than the 2 together in the right order. This applies in urgent situations; ie: "Ivo, don't drop that on Burl!" "I Lightning aQueen. " "Lightning MacQueen, don't drop that on Burl!" "Dat no Burl, dat Little Lightning aQueen." Simple things like asking, "You ok?" "I Lightning aQueen." Re-ask with proper address.

Ivo's been this way about his alter-identities since he started adopting them. But, let's face it, "Lightning MacQueen" is not easy to say. It takes too long. It hardly rolls off the tongue while it curls Ivo's tongue up! The last few days he's professed solidarity with Burl and Ryan in the best way he knows how - by sharing his favorite character's (of-the-moment) identity, adding "Little/Baby" for Burl and "Big" for Ryan. Very sweet and very silly. Due to our carefully contained media library, when Ivo plays astronaut, he adopts the nom de jeux "Homer-baba" from Simpsons season 4 disc 3 episode 3 or 4. At various times yesterday and today, I've been "Lisa" surrounded by Big Homer-baba, Homer-baba and Little Homer-baba. And the 3 bears.

Concurrently, Ivo has, a few times over the last couple days, announced that he's Ivo. I tell him Ivo's my favorite. While I love the imagination (however verging on schizo it may be) and playfulness, constantly having to call and refer to everyone by some role (no "he" allowed) can be exhausting. Especially Lightning MacQueen.

Sometimes I can see Ivo pause to remember who's who while he's talking. Tonight going up to bed with Ryan, he came over to the computer where I'm nursing Burl while typing this and said, "Night, night... Night Girl..." Furrowed brow, squinched lips, "Umm, Night, Girl... What you name?"