'Tend

He pretends that lots of things are hats. Here, it is a puzzle piece, "Hat." he says.

Stan B loves to pretend or as he says, " 'Tend." It started when we got this play food set. He would cut them (they hold together with velcro) and he serves me food and I pretend to eat). Then we would eat blueberries and raspberries fresh off the bushes at Grandma and Grandpa's house. There are also raspberries in the alley behind our house and he loved picking those berries & eating them.

Serving me fries.

Unfortunately (fortunately) there are lots of beautiful flowering trees and plants here with berry-like fruits that I don't know enough about (edible? poisonous?) and he would point at them and say, "Berries, eat!" and I would say, "No, you don't eat those you only eat the raspberries." One time he picked an unknown fruit and it seemed he was about to put it in his mouth and I said, "No, we don't eat those berries, " and he responded, " 'tend!" and put it near his mouth and pretended to eat it. I said, "Yes, just pretend." And then he said, "Berries, alley, eat." Which means that we only eat the raspberries in the alley. So smart.

It looks like the bears are making mischief but really it's a bunch of pizza and muffins on the ground.

At one of the playgrounds there is a little counter-like thing and I asked him if I could buy and order a hot chocolate. He looked at me, smiled and without much hesitation he turned around picked up some tan bark and handed it to me. I pretended to drink it. I pretend to pay him too. We play that often. When we are at home he uses his stacking cups and hands them to me and I pretend eat and say, "Spicy!" or "Hot!" or "Sour!" or "Sweet!" He loves watching my expressions and loves pretending to do it as well.

He is serving me a hamburger or pancakes here. You can also see his black eye a tiny bit. He either got it by running into the wall or the chair. He runs and dives on one of the dining room chairs and sometimes lands badly...

I came upon this pot with my little salt and pepper shakers in it. He was making something delectable.

Another pretend game we play is "Is that a dog?" It started out one evening when he was playing peek a boo and hiding behind the door jamb....he said, "Stanley are?" (He gets are and where switched around...so what he meant was, "Where is Stanley?") I said, "Did you hear something Mike?" and Mike plays along. This one time we heard the neighbors dog bark so we said, "Is that a dog?" and Stanley said, "No, Stanley!" and we say, "That dog talks!" and he giggles. It's really adorable...even after the hundredth time doing it.

Feeding the dino.

Playing with the play kitchen at the local toy shop. He loves those little pots and pans.

I made fake salt dough mini breads for him to play with.

Here he is serving the pretend bread.

He clears his bookshelf off (in the background) and uses it as a oven. Here he is spatula-ing  bread out of the "oven".

Here he is making cakes out of yoga blocks, books and trucks.

He was eating apple slices one day and I came in (because it was awfully quiet) and he pushed the ottoman up to the t.v. and was cutting his apple into tiny pieces while watching a cooking show:

He also pretends to make phone calls. Most often he calls Papa but he often calls Carter and Abby too. Here he is calling Papa:

calling papa from erin kawamata on Vimeo.