Pretend

Tonight I noticed Devon consciously playing pretend for the first time. We were having dinner and she had some rice and green beans in a bowl, which she subsequently dumped out onto the high chair. Then she picked up the bowl, put it on her head and said, "Hat." I should mention that she definitely knows this is a bowl and not a hat. She tried the bowl on a few times, continuing to tell us that it was a hat. A few minutes later she switched tactics to a more elaborate scenario. She put the bowl to her ear and then started talking like she was on the telephone. I couldn't really make out what she was saying, it was something like "Blah blah blah Daddy. Blah blah. Blah blah Daddy," so she was clearly playing at having a conversation with Walt. Then Walt started chiming in and pretending that he was talking to her through the "telephone." She was having a grand time putting the bowl to her ear and playing telephone (a familiar game, since she plays with our cell phones frequently and Walt's mom also got her a little play phone too) -- and was actually somewhat blase about Walt playing along with her.

I was surprised about this, since I thought it would add a whole new dimension to the game; but then when I thought about it, when I was little and played pretend, it was critical to have another friend who was in on it. My friend Marilyn Becker and I had worked out this incredibly elaborate scenario with two people, James and Kathy (named, as I remember, after her sister and brother) and spent hours and hours concocting situations, dialogue and interactions with them. And while it was crucial to have Marilyn there, since somebody had to be the Kathy to my James, it wouldn't have added anything to have someone else drop in and try to fit themselves into it. Perhaps that was what was happening when Walt tried to play -- he wasn't in on the scenario, so he wasn't adding to it (hence Devon's lack of interest in that). Anyway, this was all quite fascinating for me, since it led me to wonder when children start becoming less literal and realize that there is a physical world and then an entirely different one in their mind, and they're living in the intersection between the two.

Since I just got this handout from the pediatrician, I'll mention one other thing I read in it: children at about 18 months start to realize that they are different, separate beings from their parents. Up until that point, they thought they were the same. When they realize this, they are suddenly in a struggle to mold their own identities -- essentially prove that they are independent and different from you -- but they also want very much to be like you, so they copy what the parents are doing. Perhaps this idea of pretending is a manifestation of that, creating an interaction that happens in the mind of the child, so the parent can't participate (although we can, of course, observe). I think this will be a very interesting development period ahead of us.