Extreme Imagination

It's no mystery that pretend play is good for kids, and I love that my kids seem to play cook, play house, play baby whenever they get the chance.

The first example I can remember was about a year ago when Senya started to take an interest in pretend cooking. At first, I didn't see the point of pretend cooking when she had every opportunity to help me in the real kitchen (and I mean I can't even butter a piece of toast without the kids dragging over their chairs to watch and help; I do love it most of the time).

One day, we were outside playing, and I was debating whether or not to invest in a play kitchen because of the money and room it would take up in our not-so-big house when I saw Senya fiddling with a pile of leaves. I asked her what she was doing and she responded that she was baking a cake in her oven (i.e. a bunch of sticks buried in a pile of leaves). I didn't know whether to credit her for being so resourceful for finding her own props or to feel totally lame for not providing her with enough tools to even begin her pretend play.

So when I came upon the scene below, I didn't know what to think.

First, if you can't tell, the baby's cradle is an overturned plastic step stool from Ikea. See if you can tell where Senya sourced the doll's bottle from the picture below:

Yep, you're right. It's the plastic post holding up the stable from a kid's nativity set.

So, my question is: how much pretend is enough?

By now, are you thinking 'oh, how imaginative' or 'oh, how deprived'? In any case, I think I saw some doll bottles at the dollar store that I'm going to go buy.