Imaginative play

Baby Sam is napping upstairs, and Maia and I have been playing in her kitchen area for the last several minutes. I'm taking a short break from our pretend meal together to record some of the details of what it's like to participate in Maia's imaginative play these days:

• She's very detail oriented. When it's time for her to cook macaroni and cheese, she uses a wooden spoon to stir and serve it, a knife to add a bit of butter to the cheese sauce, and a separate spoon or fork to eat it. The utensils are real, but, of course, she's not using real butter, so she mimics the motion of slicing a pat of butter off of the stick.
• She participates in the cooking process for various pasta dishes a couple of times a week with Brian and me, and it's fun to hear her saying "I'm going to test a noodle. Nope! It's not ready! It's still crunchy!" when she's pretend cooking.
  
• She's careful to be sure that her set of dishes and utensils is all the same color. Today, it's green.
• She's very precise with her words, too. Just now she said "I'm looking for the stirring spoon in the utensil basket." She's also sure to pick up her hamburger patty with what she calls the "cooking spatula," which is metal.

It's a kick to participate in all of this, because it's so clear that she's imitating the cooking behaviors that she sees Brian and I doing in our every day life.