Imagination

Emma's imagination is in play.  She makes me pretend that I am Emma and that she is the mommy, or she tells me I am Josh or Mary from daycare and we are riding the bus to school together.  The other day, she was having a "conversation" with a babydoll, letting baby know she was putting her bathing suit on because they were going swimming etc. Emma was parenting her baby, as we parent her, letting her know why we are doing things before we do them.  We love watching and listening to her talk to her babies and animals, she gets very involved and animated.  Emma pretends that she is a baby again, states she is hungry and asks me to feed her a bottle, with a doll bottle...she pretends to suck on it and just stares up at me, smiling with her eyes while she pretends to eat.  I have read this is very common to want to recreate the baby and bottle scene.  Parents are encouraged to go along with it, no matter how old they are, as it's probably one of their first memories of feeling safe and secure.

Pretending to drive is probably Emma's favorite pretend game and sometimes we are told to sit on the couch so she can drive us, then she makes us pretend to drive, which includes engine noises and gear shifting.  Hopefully she doesn't try to really get into a real car and drive!  She has several sets of faux keys and a set of real keys, to a car that no longer exists, so given the opportunity, I'm 99% sure she would try to put them in an ignition.

Emma's recognition of family and relationships has blossomed in the last few weeks (we have been going over who is related to who for a few months now).  She will ask where family members are and what they are doing (i.e. Pop-Pop Bill is at work, John the neighbor is walking the dog)...sometimes Emma even asks about people she has only seen a few times, so her memory is Fort Knox.  Emma has even picked up on the fact that she has never seen my Dad beyond pictures (he passed away years ago, for those who follow the blog, but don't really know us).  Last week during lunch, Emma said to me, "Where mommie's Daddy go?".  Uhhhhhhhhh.  That was a tough one to explain to a 31 month old.  A few days ago, she asked, "Is mommie's brother coming to my house?".  She took me by surprise with the use of mommie's brother vs. Jeff and I chuckled aloud...we were watching Caillou, so not sure what spurred this question.  The timing of these questions is so random...we will be eating lunch, watching a TV show, riding in the car etc, not even talking about the people she inquires about.