Playing pretend

[Moos]

My toddler son is really into playing pretend at the moment. I get commanded to be certain characters, and then I have to do the voice and act the part. It has occasionally got to the stage when he refuses to do as he's told unless it's done in character, and then he is saintishly obliging in a way that is never forthcoming for mere Mummy.

(Needless to say I never get to be anyone cool, but such unflattering alternative personae as Big Chris from Roary the Racing Car, Mrs Large the elephant from the book A Quiet Night In, the Fat Controller, Gloria the hippo from Madagascar and so on. It's enough to give a girl a complex..)

Anyway, it's quite funny and I usually enjoy it, but I was just curious whether other people's kids do it, and if so who you have to be?!

[clux]

My daughter went through a stage of doing this - I always had to be really rubbish characters too and i was only allowed to say what she told me to, I wasn't allowed to improvise or i'd get a right telling off. We used to have to do the Wizard of Oz, The gingerbread man, Lion King. And it was always the same part of the story over and over again

Now she is 4 and a half and at big school she seems to have outgrown it though!

[Ko]

err... well i do pretend voices all the time even though baby ko is only 4 months old and can't request it yet!! my favourite is doing voices for the cats and pretending they are talking to baby ko!!

[????]

I do a mean Doodles. I defy you to tell the difference.

[redjam]

This thread made me laugh, as my two-year-old is obsessed with pretending to be animals at the moment, and I have to join in using the correct voice, movements etc. It switches from one animal to another really quickly, so I might be walking down the street and she'll say 'Mummy penguin?' and I have to say 'Yes, baby penguin?' and start waddling (quite embarrassing in Somerfield's), otherwise she gets very cross with me. Then five minutes later she'll suddenly be a lion or whatever. If she's not an animal she's quite often Baby Jesus, which seems to involve her blanket being wrapped round her head (don't ask me). And the other day she startled me by saying 'I'm a banana!' and bending over to one side and speaking in a special deep banana voice. I'm going to be so sad when she grows out of this phase, it's hilarious.