Anything you want?

Little Bug has a new game.  This is a wonderful game based entirely on pretend play.  Its simply called “Anything you want?”

Little Bug will stand at the edge of our kitchen next to our fridge- where the linoleum ends and carpet begins.  He stands and asks, “Anything you want?”

After pausing to think, I order,  “I want a coffee please.”

“Anything you want to eat?”

“No thank you.”

“You want a salad and fridees.  Give me 2…2…4…4…5 please.”  (Those are his outrageous prices.)

He takes the money and puts it in his drawer- the letter ‘M’ on the fridge.  He then runs over to the kitchen table and cooks.  He pretends to chop lettuce and tomatoes.  Then he shreds cheese and begin to fry the fridees.  Finally, he makes my coffee.

Carefully, he makes three separate trips back to me to give me my food.  Finally, he looks me in the eye and says, “Thanks!”

He runs behind me and pushes me into the kitchen, prompting, “Anything you want?”  I know now that it is my turn to take his order.

So far, he will only play this game with me.  He won’t let other people watch, so we are working on gradually getting him to let Nick watch and then play.  Hopefully, we can then generalize this pretend play to other types of pretend play.  He has begun to make up pretend stories about his trains and sharks; however no one else can participate in them.