I am one of "those" mommies. The ones who don't like playing with dinosaurs or pretending to be farmers or pirates. And don't even get me started on Hot Wheels. Give me a game of checkers or a book to read aloud and I'm golden. I will cook with them, color with them, whatever, just please not the pretend play!
Most of the time when my children ask me if I'll play "fill-in-the-blank" with them I say "not right now" and The Reader will say "You can be the busy pirate". This morning I was the "busy farmhand".
But today, round about eleven, I was hot. Hotter than hot. The boys were complaining about how hot it was and asked to put their swimsuits on. I don't know why they think just the act of putting on ones swimsuit makes them cooler but they do. The Entertainer thought this was a great idea and stripped down naked in the back yard. I couldn't tell him he couldn't swim so I put my suit on quickly and let the three of them get in the pool.
Mr. Steady came home soon after this and we convinced him to join us. We were having an absolute blast. Sometimes we need to just abandon all sense of....what is it, pride, prudishness, just plain busyness? We need to let it go and have fun.
The boys were climbing on me and fooling around. One of them suggested they be baby joey kangaroos and I jumped all over the pool with one on my front and the other on my back. The five of us made a whirlpool (talk about a terrific workout). Then they went back to the kangaroos. There was a mean dog trying to attack the baby kangaroo. So the mommy kangaroo had to attack (read: wrestle) the mean dog. It was great. I felt so engergized and relaxed afterwards.
In the afternoon the boys were told to pick up the playroom. Because we had filled up their Love Tanks with attention earlier in the day it was easier (NOT a piece of cake) to get them to complete the job.
We finished the day with Mr. Steady's famous nachos and red pop for dinner and a viewing of Night at the Museum for the older two. The Thinker declared on his way to bed that "this was a great day". I concur.
How about you? Do you find pretend play to come easy to you or do you struggle with it? What pretend things do your children always beg you to play?
I so struggle with this very same thing. The hardest part is sitting there and thinking of all the other things that need done and I should be doing instead of just playing and then I have to remind myself...this is my work and requiring myself to do it everyday and finding ways to work "teaching" into it as well. The "teaching" part makes it feel productive to me even though I know imaginative play is productive for young children all by itself. I just have to think of these things while I'm playing and I can usually do it a bit longer, but it is HARD!
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