Pretend

Last Friday, Princess made up a game to play pretend with me. I was finishing my bible study, and she was supposed to be resting, but she came downstairs early. She needed some extra attention that day, so she climbed into bed with me, which is where I was studying. Then she and I pretended to be bears, and we ate foxes. Then we pretended to be foxes in our “burrows”, which is what Princess called our home under the covers, and we were winter foxes that ate penguins. I was mommy bear and mommy fox, and she was baby bear and baby fox. Her animal name was Roberta and mine was Moroberta. We foxes also saved our baby brother fox from the river, where he fell in. Where did she get all of this strange pretend life-like animal play from? Planet Earth, which happens to be her all time favorite TV show, followed by a close second of, How Its Made. We actually rarely watch TV these days, and when we do, we have Planet Earth DVRed and just watch it. She loves it. As much as we try to encourage her play with toys, I don’t think we need to own any for her, just an occasional video and she’d be happy as a pea in a pod without them.

Sidenote: I have been studying her lately – trying to figure out her learning style, trying to figure out how to best communicate with her at this age during the strong-willed outbursts. She is very much a visual auditory learner. I think she could learn anything on a video, but of course, I want more involvement than that. Yesterday, we purchased a feelings chart, (a tip from a library book) and it has already helped communications enormously, and though I could have made one, it only cost $1.