Pretending

Yesterday, while I was in my room, I observed Sammy and Tess playing with the laundry basket. At first, Sam put Tess in the basket and pulled her around my room, but then he decided to get in and join her. He told me that they were in a boat and and that they were beginning to get hungry. He then decided he had to go fishing. He happened to have a bucket with rope attached to it. So, he threw it overboard and lucky for him, the fish jumped right into the bucket! He tugged the bucket back into their boat and he pretended to eat the fish. I watched in amusement and then astonishment when Tess started to eat the imaginary fish too. She was pretending! She's learning a new way to play! She reached her little fingers into the plastic red bucket and brought little invisible fish to her mouth. She looked up and smiled at me, but kept "eating". Oh, I really wanted to get my camera to capture both of them in their "boat", but I knew it would break the magic and so I just watched. It also goes to prove my theory that children enjoy every day items much more than toys. They just seem to capture their imaginations much better than toys do.