Yesterday morning, undeterred by my (Nonno's) previous reluctance to get on the floor, Eddie insisted, "Play on the ground, Nonno, on the ground!" When I reiterated that I would get cramps and that my knees and back hurt, he thought a moment and then offered a solution: "Do you want a band-aid, Nonno? Get a band-aid!" When I laughed, he broke out into a big grin and said again, "Are you kidding me?"
Eddie has an Iron Man mask that he has ordered me to wear the last couple of days and to act out Iron Man. Sometimes he wears it and says that he's Iron Boy. After I've worn it for some time and have used a different voice, pretending to be Iron Man, he gets nervous and comes to take it off to make sure that it's still Nonno under there.
He likes to play monsters and pirates and such, but within limits. If the monster is too convincing, he gets worried and then frightened and yells, "No! Don't scare me!" or "Don't eat me!" Before reaching that point, when he starts to become unusre, he asks, "Are you a happy monster/pirate/Iron Man, or a mean one?" So, when I played pirate the first day or so (donning a bandana I brought back from Cammina Molise), he kept asking me, "Are you a happy pirate?" and more recently, "Are you a happy Iron Man?" wanting to be reassured that he isn't in any real danger of being mutilated or devoured.
This morning he had me don the mask and play Iron Man all morning, even reading to him as Iron Man. Later, when we went out to lunch (and I wasn't wearing the mask--thankful that he didn't require to keep wearing it in public), we ordered a ham and cheese sandwich for him. He ate the ham and cheese, but left the bread. When Anne asked me if I wanted it and I accepted, Eddie exclaimed, "Hey, Iron Man is eating my food!" But he then generously let me eat it. He was just kidding me.
