hannah's imagination

over the past 6 months or so hannah's imagination has exploded. she started maybe a year and a half ago with pretending to be a dog or a cat. now i think she's pretending to be something or someone every minute of every day! sometimes i will say something like, "let's brush your hair, hannah." and she will tell me, "i'm not hannah, i'm alice in wonderland." her favorite two characters by far are alice and the little mermaid, but she also pretends to be cinderella and "tommy." if you read the post below, you know tommy started off being what she called her little sister, but then tommy turned into a pretend baby she would carry around, and sometimes tommy is just someone else she pretends to be. it can be kind of embarrassing, like when tim took her to the park and she was playing with an older girl and all hannah would say is "i'm tommy" over and over and over again. she gets really into her roles and assigns us parts, too. now i don't know if all this pretending is normal for an almost 3 year old, but i'm going to say it's a sign of intelligence. ;) and maybe a future actress in the making. she also comes up with pretty ingenious uses for normal things around the house. i've seen a retractable tape measure become a fishing rod, a bracelet become a hula hoop for a doll, and a pair of shoes become dogs, and the shoelaces their leash.

here's hannah last month playing one of her favorite pretend games: tea party.