pretending

Butterfly's imagination runs rampant in our house. She loves to play with her friends or her sister. They play house, doctor, fighting badguys, training horses/dogs, camping, princess and more. frequently she will run up to me and say things like, "mom, we're taking our babies to the pool, where's the pool?" and I direct her "downstairs in the hallway" or the library is in front of the fireplace or the park is behind the couch. Its fun. But our favorite game goes like this:

"help, help!" calls the beautiful princess. the brave knight (that's me) approaches, "oh princess, I am coming!" "you must save me knight!", she cries and then she instructs me on what feat I must accomplish such as defeating the dragon, crossing the narrow bridge, climbing the tower or general fighting the bad guys. I do this with as much drama and gusto as I can muster (while Ladybug giggles in delight as she watches from the couch unless I can convince her to be my sidekick). I approach the princess, "dear princess, I have bested the dragon and am here to save you." Then she unlocks her own chains (not sure why she would be chained to the wall if she had the key all along) and runs to me, leaps into my arms and I carry her off. We immediately go to the ball where we dance and sing and where I absolutely must end with dipping her back low in my arms. Then she begs for a kiss and I tell her to save it for daddy because this little princess can only kiss her daddy. otherwise, I might turn into a frog.

another pretend game is when the girls play outside under the weeping willow. The long branches nearly touch the ground so it's the perfect castle/house/hideaway for them. This weekend we were playing outside and Butterfly told me "I am the mom, my sister is the children and you get to be the Gram." This made me smile because our Gram (Daddy's grandma) is a pretty awesome lady and I love that she said that. "what does the Gram do?" I asked. And she accurately and adorably replied, "You have to sing songs and give us treats."