Olive Loves Pretend Playing

I sometimes think that Olive lives in a perpetual state of imaginary play. Now, when I say imaginary play I mean that all day long she is constantly being some character. . She has a wide breadth of characters that she pretends to be. It is sometimes rather difficult to keep up with who she is pretending to be at that exact moment because it changes so fluidly. I am often getting corrected by Olive if I do not call her by the right character that she is at that moment. It takes concentration to keep up with her. Here she is being a puppy dog in her "cave"

 My favorite thing about her constant make believe is when she says "I know...let's play_____!" Like it's this fabulous idea she just thought up. For example, I was cleaning the kitchen and asked her if she wanted to help me. She said "I know....let's play Cinderella!" And then she went on to explain who everyone would be in that scenario. It isn't just Olive playing pretend, we all have a role also. Cinderella is one of my least favorites because that means I am usually assigned to evil stepmother and so I need to be mean and grumpy (although that is not a far stretch). I almost always try to suggest that I can be the fairy godmother. Whenever Olive is pretending we have to hit the highlights of that story. So if we are Cinderella she has to work and clean, and then be sad because her dress gets destroyed, and then needs the fairy godmother to make her a new "bride gown" to go to the ball.

Then the next second you will be assigned someone else in another story and it will all start over again. Since this has been going on for a awhile now I can usually tell who she is playing and how I should respond to her. Often the game begins with "Hi _____. How was your day?" Then you know it's go time. So she will say "Hi Blueberry. How was your day?" and then you know you have to say "Hi Strawberry is was great!"

I have been struggling with her lately because she is not very interested in playing independently with her toys. She always always wants to play with you. She wants to just follow you around and constantly be talking and interacting as these characters. No matter what you are doing or where you are. In the car, at the store, cleaning the tub she wants to sit and talk with you and pretend a story. I will be honest, it can be exhausting. I have seen it in some of her friends and cousins too. They get tired of always playing make believe. But, Olive loves it.


Here are some of Olive's character and our subsequent parts.
-Rapunzel, which means Scott is Flynn, I am mother Gothel, and Milo is Pascal.

-Strawberry Shortcake, Scott is Huckleberry (or as Olive calls hims Huck. It makes me nervous everytime) and I am a variety of the other characters depending on her mood. Usually Apple Dumpling or Blueberry Muffin.Milo is Pupcake.

-Olive is often the Mom and I vary between being her sweety (or daughter) and being the Grandma. Milo is usually her baby. Then she calls Scott babe, to distinguish that she in now his wife. Sometimes we are both mommy friends where Milo is my baby and she has her own baby, but Scott is still usually her husband.

-Olive is a baby and then I am still the mommy.

-Olive is Roo and I am Kanga. She often makes Milo Pooh or Piglet and Scott is less clear, sometimes Christopher Robin or Owl. If Olive is Pooh then I am still Kanga but Milo is now Roo.

-Olive likes to play Carebares but she isn't sure about all of their names so we are just assigned colors or their tummy pictures (what are those called again?)

-Olive is me and then I am Grandma Kathleen. The others are usually left out in this scenario except if we play other families then she assigns us all parts. It makes me laugh because if there is an extra "part" that doesn't fit our 4 people in our family Olive always says "Aunt Aubree will be ____." I'm not sure why Aubree is always the go to person to fill a role in Olive's head, but she is.

I could keep going but I wont...if it is any kids show or movie or anything that she thinks up in her head, we have all been assigned parts.


-Olive plays Nala, which makes me Sarabi, Scott Mufasa, and Milo is Simba.
 One of my favorite recent stories about her is that as she was assigning people to play Lion King, she stopped and said "If Mufasa is Simba's daddy, who is my daddy?" and I paused for a minute and said "Um...Mufasa." Olive says "No no no mom. I am Nala. So who is my daddy?" I couldn't figure out how to explain polygamy to a three year old so I just said "I'm not sure." When Scott got home later that evening Olive was sure to tell him "You are Simba's daddy, but we don't know who my daddy is." And Scott, not knowing about any of our conversation said "....ok...."