Pretend play and the three months milestone

Biyearly update, kind of...

My daughter has surprised me with pretend games as of late. At 2,3 years she spends each day some time pretending she is having tea with some friends. She has a tent in the playing room where she always "makes" us "tea and makrutes" (an Arabic cookie I believe she learnt from a book called "Muk travels around the world"). She also has some imaginary friends who apparently live in the tent. She has even given them names and keeps mentioning them.
Two weeks ago we attended her great granma's funeral in a Catholic church and she was apparently fascinated by the building for she started mentioning churches all the time and then she decided there was a mouse in the church and everything was turned into "mice in churches". Then, the church kick waned but she keeps inventing new games. Whenever we go to a park she gets under a slide or shack and pretends that is her house.
For two reasons this has really taken me aback. I thought pretend play was something that started later in a child's life, or so I had read, and I have never encouraged it, not consciously at least. She has a cabinet in our kitchen and another one in the bathroom but they are used to store real objects that she uses for practical life activities such as cooking, eating, washing or grooming herself. Some people might have thought her kitchen cabinet was a play kitchen but that is not the case. The only toy food she has is a set of cutting wooden food box that is kept in our living-room shelves with other items. Since the food in that set is sliced or cut in pieces I thought we might use it to work on fractions but I don't expect this to happen any soon.
Another game she has come up with all by herself is the "I spy" in the way of "tell me a word". Then, you tell her one and she starts looking around for the object you've just mentioned. This is a wonderful way to consolidate words seldom used. And talking about language, it is now evident that M's first language is Catalan. I guess it is only normal for this is the language she hears around. Since she started to interact with adults, her Catalan vocabulary has widened a lot. She understands English and does sometimes answer back in English or makes up mixed words such as "neetem" (need conjugated in Catalan), "playem" (from play) or "tuquing" (from tocar) but doesn't generally use English to express herself.

M is really into cooking, spooning, funneling, washing dishes, and other activities that tend to happen in the kitchen.

Other of her interests in the gross motor field are shooting balls, which she is very good at, going through tunnels or climbing onto places, and well, movement in general.

In the social aspect, M often asks to see children and we try to provide them whenever possible. As I have sometimes mentioned, in Spain most children M's age are in kindergartens plus we live in   an underpopulated area so it is not very often that we get to see children. Anyway, her interest is not  yet in playing with them, she enjoys watching them and interacts only with the ones she is more familiar with. We got a full garden of children yesterday and she had a great time. It is amazing to see her while children are playing with her toys and using her things, not always in the gentlest possible way. I feel very clumsy when expressing this. I don't like labeling behavior and escape using words such as "sharing" or "generosity". In fact what I am talking about is not exactly sharing I believe, at least not in the way most adults seem to think about the issue. We have never ever prompted her to share anything and yet it is beautiful indeed to see her "sharing" from her heart as it is to see her offering you her food even if it is her favorite food and there is only one piece left.
I have also noticed this girl of mine is growing very empathetic, as well. Some things have been worrying me as of late and whenever she sees me worry she urges me to laugh. "Riu, mama, riu", she says.


Dear little A is about to turn from tommy to back position. I expect it to happen any day. This baby of mine is really keen on movement. It started already in the belly and when very little time before his birth he did a somersault and changed from head to breech position. Most of the milestones I recall happening later are already taking place; turning, holding and raising head, doing crunches. Unlike her sister at his age, he sleeps much and generally he only wants to nurse when he is really hungry. I am amazed at how different two siblings can be. She could spend her days at the breast and he is sometimes annoyed if I offer him milk and he is just sleepy, or so it was at least until now that he's turned 3 months. Some patterns are starting to change, though. We are setting a bedtime routine that seems to work, something we never did with M. Hence her sleep habits have never been too good, or so I fear. I used to regard the idea of routines as a purely grown-up thing convenient to adult's lifestyle but I might have grown up myself for I find they can be useful and helpful for the baby. In general we go more with the flow of the everyday rhythm, trying to leave ample room for what might come up but this time around I have brought myself to set a bedtime routine to which I am sticking to.

Well, the feeling of time going by real fast is something that becomes too obvious when you have children. Already three months and it seems it was yesterday that I found out I was pregnant!
Three months have had to pass to enable me to write a long update post, and there is yet so much I am leaving unsaid. I truly hope I will be able to write oftener now but I feel I can't promise anything. Sorry!