favorite pretend games

Recently Kevin has become much better at imagining and pretending, and Heidi loves to join in. Here are a couple of the kids' favorites:

• Playing dogs--For Kevin this means barking loudly, crawling on all fours, licking people wherever is convenient (pant legs, feet, arms), drinking from imaginary water bowls in the kitchen (which Kevin believes is all the sustenance a dog needs), and playing fetch. Heidi loves to join in.
• Serving Mom desserts--Our piano apparently is fully equipped with any imaginary dessert a person could desire. The kids always want to cut slices of cake by sticking knives between the keys (which is NOT allowed). They will bring me desserts and put them in my hands and then wait for me to taste them and say how good they are. I can also make requests for specific flavors, colors, and toppings. Occasionally they will bring me napkins to wipe my face and hands. Recently the restaurant has branched out, so sometimes I can get imaginary sandwiches or imaginary soup.
• Hitting bears with pots and pans--we all leave the room when Kevin starts playing this one!
• Dumping bins of toys onto the couch and then "driving away" like the recycling truck.
• This isn't exactly pretending, but before he goes to bed at night he always asks to tell us about movies. If we're willing to stay and listen, he can describe his favorite movies in impressive detail. It's pretty amazing how he can quote the movies so accurately and mentions so many details. He usually starts with Monsters, Inc., and after that he'll talk about Spirited Away, Finding Nemo, Up, or others. Sometimes I catch him acting out scenes from the movies, like when he was cutting some paper with scissors and then spontaneously started pretending he was the old man from Up and was cutting the balloon strings in the fire place.
• Kevin pulled out a bunch of random items from the kitchen and toy box and spent hours making something. He had a baby food maker (the kind with a crank), a knife sharpener, a mixing bowl, some spatulas, a shoe, and some cars. He used the shoe and cars to measure ingredients. The baby food maker was the mixer, which he used by cranking the handle. When he need more imaginary milk, he would get it from the fridge, dump it in the mixing bowl, and then come back and pour it into his "mixer." If the "mixer" got broken, he fixed it with the knife sharpener, which was his screwdriver. I never did completely figure out what they were doing other than cooking, but the game made perfect sense to Heidi. Once she joined in, her job was to get the imaginary milk. The game kept them occupied for a few hours, spread throughout the day.

I know that too much TV is not supposed to be good for kids, but I have to say I am indebted to PBS Kids for the things Kevin has learned. I think it is one of the reasons he has become more interested in pretending, because after seeing shows he will reenact them when he's playing and also build on the ideas he saw in the show. He can quote a lot of shows word for word (books too). Kevin likes it when we eat popcorn for lunch and watch videos on pbskids.org.

• Our favorite is Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. It is about the people from Make Believe Land in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Daniel Tiger is the son of Daniel Striped Tiger from the show, and a lot of the other characters have grown up and had children. The show is great for helping children to solve problems and deal with their emotions. Every show has a little jingle that the characters sing several times in the show to emphasize the lesson. Kevin sings them all the time when he's playing or trying to do something, and it has been great because they help him to not be so frustrated. We often sing them ourselves to remind him to take turns, run to the potty, keep trying, and so on. Here are some of the ones he sings: "Keep trying; you'll get better!" "You can take a turn, and then I'll get it back." "If you have to go potty, stop and go right away, then flush and wash and be on your way." "Making something is one way to say I love you." "See what it is; you might feel better." "Clean up, pick up, put away; clean up everyday." He has also learned to button his own buttons from the show because Daniel's dad shows Daniel a trick for buttoning where you say, "Peekaboo . . . pull it through!" Now if they would just do an episode about how to pump your legs on the swings, I would be thrilled!
• Kevin also loves Curious George, and while I don't love it, I do appreciate what it has done for Kevin's social skills. One of the things we have observed about Kevin is that in some social situations he doesn't know how to act until he gets a template or example of how to act. Curious George has become a template for him, so it has helped him figure out how to do things like respond enthusiastically if he is offered something he wants, or get excited when he's figured something out, or laugh when he thinks something is funny. It's sort of weird because all of a sudden he's become a little more childlike. (Not sure if this will make sense for people who don't know Kevin very well.) I also like the way George likes to make things he sees at the store and uses simple math and measuring to solve problems. It seems like in the shows George is a lot less mischievous than in the books.
• Another show he sometimes likes to watch is The Cat in the Hat. I think The Cat in the Hat has become the new Magic School Bus. Sally (the girl from the books) and Nick (her neighbor) start wondering about various science topics, and then the Cat comes with his "Thingamajigger" (which Kevin calls the "heenadigger") and takes them to go figure it out. Before they leave, the cat always says, "Your mother will not mind at all if we do," and then the kids ask their mom for permission.

Recently I finally introduced Kevin and Heidi to the joys of painting with watercolors, which they really enjoyed. Kevin is also becoming pretty good at cutting and gluing, which is one of his favorite things to do. And I also finally got around to buying cheap masking tape. Kevin enjoys making roads, letters, and numbers on the carpet with it. I also showed him how to make complicated lines with it and then balance on the lines. Soon I am hoping to try this and this. Kevin doesn't really like to draw or trace letters using a crayon or pencil, but he is much more comfortable painting letters, scratching them in the dirt, or making them with tape.