play right, mommy

The pictures are of Dennis playing in the toy closet at his Grandma's place last night...

Yes, today was the big family day--his cousins arrived at the lake and Chloe was also visiting at Dianne's lake place. I missed it ALL, stuck here at home in bed with a body temperature fluctuating between 100 and 104. I have no other symptoms, but everyone has big trips planned for next weekend and I didn't want to risk making anyone sick with whatever it is that's making me have a fever. I had been looking forward to seeing all the babies playing together and boat riding together, but I didn't get to see it. Fortunately, David and Dennis do not have fevers, so they went down to the lake to see everyone, and Dennis got to go on the boat with his cousins, where I hear all had a fabulous time.

There's a new play kitchen at the lake. I haven't seen it yet, but Gran assures me that all the children love it, and she was surprised that Dennis knew exactly how to play with everything. He has spent lots of time with us in the kitchen lately, but I'm not sure that totally explains it. His play has suddenly gotten very sophisticated. Today he put his farmer in the tractor and drove the tractor around on the rug. Then he took the farmer out of the tractor and made him go into the barn. Last week, he was still just tossing everything onto the floor. What really amazed me happened yesterday, when we were playing with his Little People airplane. I put a passenger in through the opening in the top and set her in a seat. Dennis looked at me as if I had made a grievous error and pulled the passenger back out of the plane. Then, looking at me as if to show me the 'correct' way to do it, he opened the door to the plane and walked the passenger through it to her seat. He all of a sudden knows how his pretend toys work! I suppose it's the same with the kitchen set, but I haven't seen him playing with this particular one. At his Grandma's last night, he put the top on the pot and put the pot on the burner on her play kitchen and said "cook". It's time to get him a kitchen for here, and I've certainly been looking. I'm trying to avoid all those plastic monstrosities out there even though they have realistic sounds and lights. I love the Plan Toys kitchen stuff, but I don't care to spend over $600 to get him a toy kitchen. It may be environmentally friendly and gorgeous in design, but it certainly isn't economically friendly! That said, I looked at the Pottery Barn website, where the kitchen set came from that started him playing with kitchen sets, and they are terribly expensive as well. There is one set on closeout, nice and white with 3 pieces, and I would love to get it for him but it won't ship until after November. While it would be a great Christmas for him, with my luck it would be backordered then and we'd end up with nothing. So I will be visiting the local store to see if they have it in stock. If I strike out there, as I did with the one from Target that got discontinued, one that I dearly loved because it was wooden and blue and not girly at all, then I will be searching online for something else. Kidkraft makes one that's a one piece set with all appliances included, and it's white and blue and red and yellow and not terrible, but now that I've seen the ones with separate oven and sink and refrigerator, that's what I would like him to have. That's what he loved playing with so much at a friend's house. Probably he would be happy with anything we got, plastic or not. He is a one-year-old, after all. And I could just suck it up and get used to something garish in my kitchen for a few years. I did get him that awful red plastic car that he loves so much! I think that kids find different items to be aesthetically pleasing than their parents do. Only natural, I suppose. It did take me 32 years to hone my preferences to what they are now!