Confessions of a Pongonk

Katie's imagination has truly taken off in the past couple of months. I love seeing her pretend. Sometimes she runs errands -- to the bank, Trader Joe's, Target -- going from place to place in her little plastic car in the house. Other days she gets ready to go to school by packing her backpack, then strutting off proclaiming "I'm going to go learn now."

Then there will be times she goes on "big trips." When asked where she is going she inevitably answers "to Halmoni's (grandma's) house."

Big trips mean she packs multiple bags chock full of assorted things, you know the bare necessities like food, a sponge, white bear, one of Maddie's burp clothes, a book. She'll usually come out wearing two backpacks, one on her back, and another on her stomach. The look is generally completed with some sort of hat (because my husband and I always wear hats when we go on big trips?!)

But my favorite part of her newly expanded imagination -- when she makes up animals, or at least I think they are animals.

Enter the Pongonk.

At first I thought I might just be misunderstanding what she was saying, that she was mispronouncing the name for something else. I asked "Honey, what's a Pongonk?"

"A Tinky," she promptly answered.

"What's a Tinky?" I asked.

"A Pongonk," she said matter-of-factly. Then she laughed at her own circular definition.

Pongonks are apparent in all aspects of our lives these days. When we sing Old MacDonald we sing "And on this farm he had a Pongonk." As a stall tactic she'll ask for a Pongonk to take to bed with her. Sometimes she claims she sees Pongonks in the backyard. When we got a package the other day I asked what she thought was inside and she answered, "a Pongonk?"

What, you may ask does a Pongonk look like? Well, I asked the same thing. Katie pulled out her Doodle pro and said, "here mama, I'll show you."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure -- the Pongonk...