A Healthy Imagination

Patrick has always loved playing pretend-we imagine that we do a lot of things, like having his own "beeper" that is an old cell phone and going on fire calls like his dad. Recently though, Patrick has been the one to come up with the make believe idea, instead of just playing along. I am thrilled to see his imagination grow and really take off.

This apparent mess, created by my own P, turned out to be...

The "garbage" he collected around his room for garbage day. The bed-his garbage truck.
He would have filled the bed with the entire contents of his room had I not stopped him.

Here he is, driving the garbage to the dump:

While this phase is warmly welcomed, another less welcome one has settled in: when Tommy cries, Patrick cries. When Patrick cries, Tommy cries. Not all the time, but when Patrick is tired and whiny, any small sound of distress from Tommy sets him off. I had to laugh the other day when Patrick in his booster seat and Tommy in the high chair both just sat and cried while looking at each other. I wanted to grab my camera, but that seemed, well, insensitive.