Pretending

It is absolutely fascinating the view you get into a child's mind as they start pretend playing. Dillon is really getting into pretending to do things. She likes to sit her baby in an opening in her activity table and pretend to feed her, complete with spoon and sippy cup. Actual food is optional. She likes to pretend to put a diaper and shoes on the baby. She likes for baby to sit in her lap when we watch one of her animal videos (also named baby- it's a pretty versatile word around here). She'll pretend that the baby wants to nurse, but then at the last minute decide that she wants to waaayyyy more than baby does, so baby gets ditched. One day she was pretending to pick things off the floor and hand them to Dave & I. I need to cultivate that little activity- it could come in useful one day!

Yesterday we went back to Billings Farm for their annual Children's Day. She got to see more of the cows, sheep, horses and chickens. The cows remained the favorite, despite getting a little freaked out by a calf that walked up to us. She was holding onto Da so tightly that I think he could've let go and she wouldn't have gone anywhere! Somewhere on the way home, she saw a swing and started saying "whee!" Pretty soon the "whee's" overtook the moos and baas, so we went to a park with one of those bucket style swings. She had a blast with Da pushing her on the swing, alternating between a exuberant "whee" and an equally exuberant "push!"

We came home and decided to grill burgers. Dillon, Satchmo and I were standing outside when I saw something move in the woods. It turned out to be a yearling deer. It was a safe distance from us, sucessfully managing to ignore Satchmo barking, Dillon saying "Dee!" and Dave coming outside. It just poked around until it eventually wandered out of sight. Unfortunately, this prompted several "more dee" for Dillon, followed by "go?" All was made well by being able to say "bye dee."

As for today, naptime is over and all efforts on my part to make pretend sleeping as much fun as pretend playing have thus far been futile. So, we'll make the best of the day and go see how much fun the world can be.