She's a Pretender

I don't know what I want to write about today. A Good Sweetie story or a Bad Sweetie story. I've got a real good Bad story in the forefront of my mind. But I don't like how I've been ragging on her so much lately. Suffice it to say, I owe TV's The Super Nanny a great big "thank you!". I think I've only caught that show once, but it was the exact right episode to help my husband and I with our Break Out Queen. That's all. If you want to know the whole story you'll have to visit my husband's site over at "Being a Dad".

Over in "Good Sweetie" Land, she's been VERY imaginative lately in her daily play. It is so fun to watch and even to be a part of. Her latest thing is to assign herself and the people around her different personas. For example, she really likes the new Disney Channel show "The Doodlebops", starring Moe, Rooney and Dee Dee Doodlebop. Sweetie has spent entire days pretending that she is Moe, that I am Dee Dee and that Daddy is Rooney. It's impressive, and funny, to see how far she takes it. She'll address her Daddy as Rooney even in the depths of despair over not wanting to take a nap, take a tubby, or whatever the case may be.

She started this Doodlebop thing, I think, on the long car ride home from the beach last Monday. My brother and his family were up visiting from Texas and Sweetie and I went with them to visit our cousin who lives near the beach. (Side note - my brother was very proud of himself that he was the very first person to take Sweetie to the beach!) Anyway, on that ride home Sweetie decided, out of the blue, that she was Moe, I was "Deenie" (she's not so good at pronouncing Dee Dee), and my brother was Rooney. But what about Sweetie's Auntie and cousin? Who were they? My niece decided she wanted to be Dora, which Sweetie happily agreed to. That left Auntie, whom Sweetie decided was simply "Doodlebop". We also talked about the other members of our family, including my husband. I said "Who's Daddy?" I suggested that he be Caillou, as he does look just a little bit like him. Sweetie said "Yeah! Daddy is Caillou". That night when Daddy walked in the door he was greeted by a tiny person who was very happy that Caillou was home from work.

My mom said that this pretend play was continued for the entire next day. But this time Sweetie was Joe (from Blue's Clues), Nana was Steve (also from BC) and the rest of the members of the busy house all had new names as well. When we picked her up after work, I was still Deenie, while my husband's name had now become Rooney.

I had the next day off from work. I went through many personalities that day, including Deenie, Blue, Steve, Wags The Dog, Greg, and Anthony. She particularly got a kick out of herself when she decided that I was her and she was me.

I read just this week in my new Parenting Magazine that it's around her age when toddler's start to pretend they are other people. It mentioned that this is a major developmental milestone. Gee, and I thought she was just being silly.