Make Believe

Most toddlers like to make believe. It's a great kind of play for them - they are using their imaginations and learning how "the adult world" works. Any child development expert out there will recommend "make believe" play for children of all ages. And just like everything else she does, A has her own unique way of make believing. 

Typical make believe play consists of make believe cooking in a play kitchen, pretending school or house and sometimes "doctor." A likes to make believe nap time. Every day for the past couple of weeks, A pulls out all her blankets and pillows (which has become quite the collection, let me tell you,) brought out her favorite stuffed "animals" (Elmo, Abby, her owl and teddy bear, and occasionally Huckle Cat and a Dr. Seuss bird thing,) and laid them down on the pillows, tucked them in with blankets and read and sung to them. It's quite the process and it's absolutely adorable.

How does your child make believe? 

In all her cuteness

It's been a while since I posted any videos, so I thought I'd post them all at once. Most of these have been put on Facebook, but sometimes those aren't as clear or take a long time to load. If you're one who likes to keep up with Aria's goings on, hopefully it'll be easier having them all on one page :)

Aria playing her "dooder," as grandma taught her to call it. She loves making music, just like the rest of the family :)

Aria rocking out and singing with Uncle Zak

Josh has now taught Aria to play one of his favorite games, Fruit Ninja. The phrases she keeps saying are "Oh, Watermelon!" and Oh, Bomb!" 

It's all about the dance moves

As I've mentioned many times, Aria loves to dance with music. Any music. It could be the music she accidentally started while pushing buttons on our keyboard, or the 30-second clips of commercial music or even her Baby Einstein toy that plays Mozart; she doesn't care, she'll dance to it. Here's a video of her dancing with the theme music of one of our favorite shows - Gilmore Girls :) 

PS - Dancing is also a great way to start little kids into music - they learn a lot about rhythm and pulse when they're dancing! It's a great way to teach beginners or even to just do at home while you're waiting for them to become old enough for lessons. Dancing is usually one of the first signs of a musical child :) 

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