Boychild and I have started our own film studio. He’s writing, I’m directing and we’re casting local toys as actors. It all began with a sock puppet named “Sadie Danger,” who was a terrible puppet at the start. She would do all the bad things, and Boychild would have to be her moral center. Sadie’s gotten less troublesome as she’s evolved, becoming more mischievous than bad, but she still makes messes and tries to eat things that aren’t food. We love Sadie.

I was recently asked to make a video for my job to explain how our kid’s passport worked. I know that at forty-something years old, I am not the best spokesperson for a kids passport, so I recruited Sadie Danger for the task, along with a weary-looking Brontosaurus to function as the straight man. The videos were fun to make, and fun to watch (at least to Boychild). I showed him the video and he asked to watch it again and again and again. It was almost as popular as the video his dad showed him where a kid tries to drink sparkling water without burping and slams his head into a garage door. That’s the most viral video in our house these days. But Sadie is a close second.

One day, Boychild asked that I “talk like Sadie” and I said, let’s write a script for her. So with a few prompts (What’s Sadie’s problem? Who’s in the story?) Boychild wrote his first script! It was about 30 seconds long, and it was a huuge hit. Sadie wants to pet the cats, but the cats run away from her when she tries. Everest (from Paw Patrol) gives her some good advice, but then Robot comes along and they all have to fight. You can watch it here.

Boychild was so in love with his film that I had to set a limit on how many times we could watch it in a row. Four. Four times. One of the best things about being a parent is seeing your child engaged and happy, and watching him watch the thing he made is spectacular: he is both engaged and joyful. Even though he’s seen it four times in a row, five times a day, he still turns to me and goes, “Wow! Hahaha! Did you see that, mama?!” It helps that we put in some low-budget special effects, but the real joy for him is seeing the fruits of his labor with characters that he controls completely. I get it. I’m amazed at his imagination and how completely sure of himself he is. Sometimes I’ll ask something like, “are you sure we should end it there?” And he’ll say, “Yes, because that’s the end.” Well there ya go.

As a creative person, I don’t know that I’ve ever been as satisfied with anything I’ve created as Boychild is with his Sadie Danger movies. He is perpetually delighted with his creations- so much so that we’ve made two more. Watching him relish his own movies makes me realize that I could do that, too. I could just enjoy and appreciate what I make instead of comparing it to what other folks make, or not fully appreciating it because it’s not perfect. He’s also got the confidence of an auteur at four years old. He knows that Robot should have more lasers and that Dinosaur is in this one but doesn’t have any lines. He doesn’t second-guess. He doesn’t compare himself to Spielberg. He just makes stuff. I knew I was going to teach Boychild a lot of things, but he’s teaching me so much, too. God, that’s sappy. Sorry! Sorry! But it’s true. I want to make stuff like a four-year old: confidently, happily, with a spirit of joy and appreciation of the imperfect result.