Let's pretend

Michael making soup for Doggie with a couple of our favorite toys: Green Toys Chef and Dish Sets and Ikea vegetables.

As a kid I loved imaginitave play--playing house, playing Barbies, playing dress-up, and even playing with Star Wars action figures if there was enough emotional drama and not just flying around shooting at stuff.  Naturally I am thrilled that Michael and Sophie like to cook up their fabric vegetables and eat them using toy dishware.

They both also pretend to leave and return from work with appropriate fanfare.  Michael will pick up their play laptop and Sophie will put a handled bag or box over her shoulder (similar to how I look when leaving the house with a diaper bag, my purse, or work bag).  They'll walk by and say, "Bye-bye," which starts this exchange:

"Are you going to work?"

"Yeah, bye-bye!"

"Bye, buddies.  I love you.  Can I have kisses?"

They'll either blow me kisses or come to me all puckered up saying "Mmmmmmuah!"

I respond with, "See you after work.  Have a good day!"

When they come home from behind the love seat or out of the kitchen, I react as excitedly as they do when I pick them up, with a big smile saying, "You're home!  I missed you!"  More hugs and kisses follow, and then the scene repeats.

When playing kitchen we pretend to cut the vegetables and put them in a pot, stir them up, and scoop our soup into bowls.  (After all the cooking done to the "Soup Song," our signature dish should be no surprise.)  Mike is pretty skilled at tossing the toy veggies in the air with a spatula and catching them in a pan.  He'd surely get good tips at a Japanese steak house.  In our house he is tipped with "Moah!"  Sophie and Michael love filling our cups with tea from their kettle that makes a cool gurgling sound.  Then we eat, slurp our drinks, feed each other, and feed any stuffed pal nearby. 

If I was 21-months-old, we would be such friends.

Recently I found toddler aprons at Hobby Lobby in the Valentine's Day section for five bucks each, but Michael and Sophie aren't really into those.  I ask them if they want to put them on almost every time we "cook," and I'm dying to seem them all cheffed up.  I guess dress-up will come later.