Magic to a 4-Year-Old

In our pulling stuff out of the closets to pack everything up for our move, we came across an old magic set that Calfgrit8 got for his birthday a couple years ago. He played with it a lot for a few months after he got it, but then somehow it got lost in the closet and we hadn’t seen it in probably a year.

When we pulled it out this time, Calfgrit4 was interested in it. His interest was mostly just in the props as funny things to play with. But there was one item that intrigued him the most: a box with a sliding drawer, in which something put could be made to disappear.

He put a red ball into the drawer, and with me holding the box, and him holding the magician’s wand, we could make the ball disappear from the drawer. I taught him “hocus pocus” to make the ball disappear, and “pocus hocus” to make it reappear.

This magic amazed and excited him. He took the box and wand, and ran to the back of the house to show Calfgrit8. “Daddy taught me magic words,” he explained.

But when he opened the box, the ball hadn’t disappeared. “It worked when I did it with Daddy,” he said, disappointed.

He ran back to me and we tried the magic words again. “Tada!” I said when it worked. We made the ball disappear and reappear a few more times until he apparently was satisfied that the magic words did, indeed, work. Then he got distracted with something else and the box was forgotten for the rest of the day.

Cowgrit and I looked at each and smiled large when he went to the other room. “That’s so damn cute,” I said, “he believes it’s magic.”

This period of belief is so fleeting.

Bullgrit