Playing Pretend

Peeper is just amazing me with her imaginative play these days. She creates quite complex scenarios, some of which are, of course, based on Sesame Street sketches, but much of which are wholly her inventions.

Today, she enacted a quite elaborate trip to the grocery store with her monkey. There were preparations, and packing the car, and driving over there, and getting in the cart, and a list ("Ummm, jelly beans. How 'bout dat? And some candy.") and a stop at the salad bar for "chicken and watermelon and olives and chicken and pepperoni." And, the wearing of one glove, for no apparent reason.

Later, she came aross one pair of plastic ice cubes from her kitchen, and insisted that we go find the rest of them. (They were in her kitchen drawers, right where they should be. I know, surprised the hell outta me, too.) Why did she need ice cubes? To grill, of course.

Oh, and she loves her some dress-up. She's now able to put on several of her costumey things herself, so there's no telling what she'll turn up wearing.

Often, the costume is, or becomes, part of the play scenario.

A few days ago, she was wearing a police chest shield thing as a backpack (No, we havent't explained "bullet-proof vest" to her. No, we don't know where it came from, or why we own it.) and the put on her "doctor hat" and stethoscope. She declared, "I am a doctor." and then realized what she was wearing, and said "Oh! Need my doctor shirt!" took off the "backpack" and put on the doctor shirt.

Today, she put on her firefighter hat and announced (not surprisingly) that "I am a firefighter." Then she started playing with her farm animals, so I figured she'd sort of forgotten about the hat. She found three cows, "Oh! Black cow! There's she!" (She had been looking for this one last night.) "Oh, brooown cooow!" (Almost just like the "Hooow noooow, brooown cooow?" that I said last night.) "Oh, nother cow."

She lined them all up, and said "Oh, cows are waiting for me."

I asked why they were waiting for her and she said, "Dey have fire on dey heads."

Well, then, of course, they'd be standing in a line waiting for a firefighter.

Other times, the outfits she comes up with are just for the sake of fashion itself. I especially like this Little House on the Prairie bonnet + half slip ensemble that she was rocking today.