Playing Dress Up

Cal is getting so good at imaginative play and is really into dressing up right now. At friends' houses with little girls, we often find him decked out in princess garb and he thinks it is pretty amazing. For a long time he insisted that he was a princess but I think I've finally gotten him talked into the fact that he is a prince and I am the princess. :) When I saw a little knight/prince costume at Costco I decided we had to get it.

A few weeks ago after Scarlett went to bed, I was picking up the house with Dan and suddenly we heard Cal in the other room playing all by himself with his big stuffed Elmo toy that talks when you squeeze his tummy. We heard Elmo say, "You're Elmo's best friend!" followed by Cal "NO I'm not! I'm a bad prince!!". Then Elmo cheerfully said, "Let's go for a walk!" to which Cal replied "NO!" and then Elmo said "Give Elmo a BIG hug!" and Cal said "No, I can't do that!!" in a sassy pretend to be mean voice. We were rolling. It was so funny.

So we decided the poor kid needed some other characters in his little world of make believe and Dan and I got dressed up and played, Prince, Evil King, and Princess.

I've never seen a little boy so happy. He was beyond thrilled. He kept pausing and saying to us "Oh, thank you so much for playing with me! I love you playing this with me." It was the sweetest thing and the pure joy on his little face just made me want to squeeze him.

Life gets so busy but it really does feel good to just take a quick break from all the chores and "to do's" and just play with your kids. Even with all the challenges that a 3 year can bring, I really wish I could just freeze this time and this age and live in it forever. He is so special and sweet and I just love him to pieces.