After we all finished dinner this evening, L went into the living room to read David a book. David had other ideas. He climbed up into L’s chair at the table, sat down with quite the grin on his face, and used her fork to pretend to cut up imaginary food on her plate. And pretended to eat it using her fork.
And then David pretended to feed bites to Grammy, just like L feeds bites to him.
David plays with toy cars and trucks and tractors, rolling them around and making engine noises. He imitates our actions, sometimes long after the fact. He acts out memories of recent experiences. But this was a deeper level of imaginary play. He wasn’t just copying movements or sounds. He was using a real fork on the food in his mind, without prompting, and carrying that constructed reality through multiple steps.
After 5 minutes of this, he decided he wanted to use a bit of real food. After feeding himself and Grammy some bites of the real food, he got down to run around and return to his usual solidly grounded play. And we were left with our memories of this wonderful glimpse into his developing imagination.
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