A recent article in the NYTimes entitled "Taking Play Seriously" (which, for the life of me, I can't get the Times page to pull up; it was on Feb. 17, 2008) examined the scientific community's understanding of play, both the sympathizers and the skeptics. While I skimmed much of the discussion of various experiments (do we really need to euthanize animals to research this?), I was interested in discussions of the role of play, especially dramatic or fantasy play.
Because the kiddos love to play. We are even emerging from parallel play to playing together. For example, a new favorite game is "office." One child waits in the hallway while the other goes into the office. The outside child knocks and receives a hello from the inside child, who invites him in. The visitor says, "it's a beautiful office." And the office occupant comments that she is working. And then they switch, and do this ad infinitem.
Another one: they spread my striped blanket (the cat isn't the only one who loves it) on the floor, strip to their diapers, and "swim." They used to do this without the blanket (or the diapers!) on the kitchen floor but changed the game when Gommie was here. Now they dive or splash off a toddler bed into the ocean, where they swim, sometimes with DD riding on DS who is a dolphin (this, he says, is "hard work"). They take turns diving. And when Gommie and I were watching, from the mud, apparently, they began to address us as the "audience," and make announcements like, "Audience, take your seats, I am going to make a really big splash."
They love building houses with my couch cushions. DS especially likes doing this, creating a house with a gate and a backyard. Today we even added a sidewalk made with all the little throw pillows. When the house is made out of pillows in the middle of the floor, instead of in the couch itself, they call it a "chinny-chin-chin" house, like the 3 little pigs.
They've been polar bears in the leafless burning bush outside that is currently covered in snow, as well as polar bears in their toddler beds covered with canopies or tents. They go on airplane or train trips, particularly to Chicago, by lining up the kitchen chairs or the paper blocks. They have lots of picnics and tea parties and birthday parties. They especially like making pies in the backyard with leaves stacked high in my planters and baking in the bathtub and calling the bubble bath "whipped cream." They have a collection of hats, scarves, and bandanas that allow them to go on safari, drive a train, be a construction worker. They use their hands to create imaginary instruments which they play in their parades (though, sometimes, they use our real collection of instruments too). They build Lincoln Log, Mega Block, and cardboard brick houses for their little plastic animals. We drew Dinosaur Land and the Fairy Garden on our new magnetic chalkboard wall and they spent an afternoon having dinosaurs and fairies visit back and forth across the river with the bridge. And sometimes, they even play doctor and check each other for tummyaches.
It's this amazing, fun, yet serious world that I am sometimes invited to join, but oftentimes watch quietly from the outside, purely enthralled with what they come up with. DD and DS seem to share the task of coming up with the game, but it is DD who usually sets the rules, even if it's a game DS originated. And she is more likely the one to shift gears and take them on to the next level or another game. Sometimes, the play is inspired by what we've read or seen on tv, and I'm okay with that. They use it as a starting point for their own play script instead of reenacting what they've seen or read. I certainly remember my days of playing Star Wars or Little House on the Prairie, borrowing locales and characters I knew for my very own stories (mind you, I didn't mix the two. And it strikes me now that they were very different games. LHOTP was always outside, while SW could be either in or out). I could spend hours playing this way as a kid, by myself or with neighbohood friends. When my own kiddos are fully engaged in this kind of play, they forget to fight, often perfectly perform turn-taking and sharing, and sometimes forget to have midday snack. It really is this incredible other realm.
And I'm lucky they invite me back into it now and then.
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DP's own reading of the article netted something I didn't find (I wonder if it was the same article?): the contrast of imaginative play with toy-play. The appearance of specific toys for play, first advertised by Mattel during the Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s, she said, ended play-for-play's sake and made it all toy-based and more material. It occurs to me that almost none of the games I mentioned above require any kind of specific toy, only "open" toys like blocks and scarves and pillows. I hope we can keep it that way.
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