Landis at Play

Landis and I have been playing with wooden ABC blocks all morning. They're a perfect toy for Landis, who is really interested in imaginative, open ended play, and also in letters and numbers.

We built stacks of blocks for a while, tall towers that were fun to build and even more fun to knock over, stepped pyramids which were not quite as tall, but much more stable, and a little city of block buildings.

After a while, Landis' attention turned to the numbers and letters on the blocks. He wanted each one identified and to know "what it was for." He has a good memory for that. Although he isn't consistently identifying letters, he remembers that D is for Daddy, L is for Landis, T is for Teagan, and so on. He's also interested in numbers, and wants to know who is "that many." Fortunately, we know enough kids that we can tell him the name of a friend for each number.

Last night, Landis took all of the cushions from the couch and spent 15 or 20 minutes arranging them just so. Then he called us over to look. He had made a playground, with cushions representing slides and swings, monkey bars and climbing structures. He showed us how he could slide, swing and play, then moved on to his kitchen. One of our cabinets had a shelf which we removed to store some tall objects. The little wooden shelf has become a stove, the focal point of Landis' kithchen play. He enjoys "cooking" lots of food for Monni and Daddy. Yesterday he mostly made pizza, pretending to knead dough, shape it into a circle, top with pepperoni and cheese, and bake until it was "very hot." He very sweetly shared with us, cautioning us to "blow on it - it's too hot!"

Landis also enjoys pretending to be on a boat. He chooses an item, usually a blanket, to represent the boat, and steers it through the "water." When we ask whose boat it is, he answers, "Landi's and Papa's." We're pretty sure he thinks he has joint ownership in Papa's real boat! Sometimes he gets out and "swims" or "floats" on his back. Sometimes he travels across the river, and sometimes he drives the boat to an island to play. He is a very imaginative little boy, and more fun every day.