Playtime

Isaac is exactly four and a half years old today, and like all kids, he loves to play. Today I asked him which was his favorite toy. He immediately answered, "Telescoping forklift." As he does not, in fact, own a telescoping forklift, I asked him which of his actual toys was his favorite. After some deliberation he answered, "None, really."

This is probably true. He is absolutely not attached to any one toy, or even to any one category of toy. Perhaps this is because his favorite kind of game is imaginary, where he pretends to be something -- usually a worker of some sort. Toys are just props in his games. If I had to choose, I'd say tools are his favorite category of toy, although usually not toy tools, because he prefers to use real-life objects as his equipment. But they don't have to be real tools to be fun; playing outside today, he set up a workshop with a flowerpot full of mud, a sharp stick, and a pile of bricks.

Despite the wealth of toys at his preschool, he has gotten most excited over a bunch of old cordless telephones; he pretends they are walkie-talkies, although he has real walkie-talkies at home! He thinks he likes toys, however. Besides the coveted telescoping forklift, he enjoys going through toy catalogs and carefully circling the items that he wants. The funny thing is that he circles toys because he wants to use them to pretend they are something else! For a week or two before Christmas, he tried to convince us he needed a toy pizza oven strictly because he wanted to use the toy pizza cutter as a utility knife.

Isaac goes through phases where he plays one game intensely for a period of time (ranging from a few days to a few months), then abandons it for a long while. We've had a single-piece molded plastic play kitchen for about two years now, a hand-me-down from a friend, and from the start Isaac seldom played with it. Played with it as a kitchen, that is -- for the last six months he has been flipping it over onto its back, climbing into the open oven or dishwasher, and calling it a "police boat."

But for some reason, earlier this week he responded favorably to my suggestion that we use the toy kitchen to cook something. He enjoyed the game so much that all week long he has said eagerly, "Let's play the pretend kitchen game!" I originally suggested it because I have been seeking games that Isaac and Laurel can play together, and cooking turned out to be a good one.* We have a whole bin of toy food and dishes, enough for both of them to use simultaneously, and Laurel enjoys standing in front of the kitchen and climbing on and off the door to the dishwasher. (Just like she tries to do in real life.)

Mostly I would say that adults are Isaac's favorite plaything. At school if he can't get the teachers to play with him, then he tries to help them do their work. One day last week a teacher told me that when another child asked Isaac if he wanted to play, she overheard Isaac reply, "I can't right now; I have to finish this job." His self-assigned job was cleaning the sand off the steps of the play structure so kids wouldn't slip. (The teacher then told him, "Isaac, your job is to play with kids.")

He plays imaginary games very well by himself, although sometimes he can get too dependent on adults for the success of a game. The police boat game, for instance, mostly consists of him picking up the toy phone (there's one in the play kitchen!) and saying "Hello? Why did you call the police boat?" And then it's up to the unlucky adult bystander to develop a plotline for the game. (A brand-new game with even more demanding script requirements is telemarketer, where the adults have to pretend to be calling Isaac in order to sell him stuff!)

Despite his continuing interest in adults, over the last few months Isaac has frequently been asking for after-school playdates with other kids. Recent favorite playmates include two boys from school, David and Liam, and a long-time friend and neighbor, Nicholas. My observation is that Isaac especially enjoys these playdates when they involve vigorous outdoor play. I think he's not quite sure how to play an involved imaginary game with another four-year-old, but they all know how to run, chase, and hunt criminals with toy guns.

Plus it's hard to get adults to play those kinds of games! On two separate occasions this week Isaac and a friend got so wet playing in puddles that an entire change of clothing was required. Even his underwear got muddy.

- - - - -

*Besides the pretend kitchen game, here are some other good games for a younger toddler and an older preschooler to play together:

• baby swim lessons, where Isaac pretends to be Laurel's teacher
  
• veterinarian's office, where we examine stuffed animals with doctor's equipment
• birds in a nest, where I snuggle and feed the two baby birds (also works with other types of baby animals, like foxes or kittens)
• camping, where we sit in a tent and pretend to eat energy bars
  
• ball, where we all roll or throw soft balls at each other

For Isaac, the most important elements of an enjoyable game played with a baby sibling are no building (and thus no destroying) and no scarcity of props (and thus no grabbing). For Laurel, the most important element of any game is being allowed to put stuff in her mouth.