Puppet master

Play time is serious business here at the Boven home. Over the past few months it has been really interesting to watch Molly move from relying on grown-ups for ideas and play scenarios to being an all out playtime dictator. While I was flipping pancakes this morning, I caught her playing with the measuring spoons. The conversation between teaspoon and tablespoon was something like, "Do you have to go tinkle?" "Yes, I have to go tinkle" "Oh, I have to go tinkle too!" (Guess what skill we're working on at our house!) It seems like everything has to have relationships, whether it is the bristle blocks talking to each other or the tractors forming a family, complete with a mommy, daddy and baby tractor.

Molly's best friends for the past few months have been her collection of puppets. We have 10 or so felt puppets that I've collected from garage sales for the last couple of years and for about 3 or 4 months now, we've spent lots of quality time developing the personalities of these little buddies. Some days I feel like more of my conversations with Molly have been through my puppet intermediary than in my normal voice! The top two puppets are Policeman, with a low and gravely voice, and Fireman, with a sort of dopey lowish voice. (I am, of course, the head puppeteer!) Dave specializes in King, who has a southern drawl, and Knight, who says things like "indeed" and "your majesty" in a proper British accent.  I do a german doctor too, who has sort of a mad scientist persona. And Dave operates "Deepak"- an Indian maharaja who only speaks hindi. Needless to say, he's pretty quiet! We take turns with a couple of princesses and old people who don't make it into the conversation very often. It's amazing how important these friends are to Molly. They are usually the first "people" she wants to see in the morning when she wakes up and their opinions definitely trump that of Molly's parents. Molly's favorite color is blue, because that's Policeman's favorite too. When she comes up with a new trick or new  idea and says, "Look guys! I have something to show you", 9 times out of 10, she's talking to the puppets, not Dave and I.

While there are definitely moments when I'm ready for the puppets to go on "vacation", they've been a sweet way to interact with our little girl. And because they have that magical influence that sometimes Dave and I don't even have with Molly, we can sneak in some lessons about sharing and being polite. And who knows? Maybe Molly will someday be the next Jim Henson! :)

Good morning Policeman! Woody and Jesse are buddies with the puppets too!

Knight and King, explaining their stance on the slaying of dragons.

Hugs for the puppets! Funny how Dave's big hands have to squeeze into our smallest puppets!

A smooch for policeman!

Party time with our favorite buddies. Fireman, by the way, gets to be in the mustache club, of which Molly is an honorary member.

This week we checked out a book called "Daddy Mountain", Molly's trying out some of those mountaineering techniques!

Princess time! We got a pile of fancy shmancy hand me down dresses from a friend.

Time to twirl!

Classic! She's deep in thought with her bristle block creation. Her little blue jumper used to be mine too. Way to go retro, Molly!