Playtime

Greta has always been a fan of pretend play. Recently, she has been playing the same scenes over and over, and here are few that come up the most frequently. A month or so ago, Greta kind of scared me while playing because of her poker face; when she gets into character, it's hard to know if she's playing or not. I picked her up from school, and on the ride home, G was telling me all about these two children at school, Charlotte and Riley. I know these girls, so I was believing G at this point. Greta said that they were taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I asked Greta what had happened to them, and she told me that Riley ate wood chips. This sounded rational to me, but I found out that it was one of the girls' favorite things to play on the playground when I called her school to ask if Charlotte and Riley were ok. (!) A few weeks ago, we visited some friends in Raleigh. Their daughter, Emily, got a dried strawberry stuck up her nose while we were there. Her mom got it out, but a neighbor doctor came over to look up Emily's nose just to be sure. It was VERY dramatic, and Greta was in awe. Since then, when Greta begins referring to me as "Emily", I know what's coming next: Dr. Greta wants to look up my nose for the strawberry. Another common scenario involves G's trusty baby doll. In it, she calls the baby, "Wyatt", and she refers to me as her baby's big sister, "Lindsey". Then I have to call Greta "Mama". During this scenario, Greta says: "My name is Traci Massey, and I am a lawyer and this is my baby, Wyatt." Other times, Greta has a baby named Wyatt, and I am supposed to play the part of another mom with a baby (the real Wyatt), and my baby's name is "Sherman". ??? In that scenario, sometimes Greta calls me "Linda". Finally, there's the mother-to-be pretend play. We have a close friend who is pregnant, and she is due to have her baby any day now. Greta freqently asks me: "When is Lisa's baby coming out?" She has, thus far, no interest in how the baby got in (thank goodness), but Greta is keenly aware that the baby must eventually come out. In this vein, G often pretends "to have a baby in [her] tummy." Today, I caught Greta right in the middle of this play scene: she wedged a stuffed animal up her dress and pretended to have a baby in her tummy for about half an hour. I adore this little girl, and I just sit back and try to soak in all these moments. I hope they last and last.