Peoples and Truck-made Treats

Sometimes I feel dwarfed by the magnitude of Cambrie's imagination. I never thought it would come full-force so early on; I kinda figured that as a three-to-five-year-old it would really blossom. But oh, no. Her still-early-two-year-old-self imagines like crazy.

(It could be normal, but I've been a slacker mom and haven't kept up with reading what is normal at what age or not. I kinda like it that way--when she gets things, I'm excited, and if she takes a little longer, I'm totally not stressed about it.)

(As a disclaimer, all the pics in this post are from our phone, so
 they're even lower quality than normal. Enjoy anyways!)

A typical Cambrie meal ends with a veritable puppet show. This girl has been known to turn a green bean into Cambrie, warn a Daddy fork not to fall over, and have a Mommy sippy cup hold said green been Cambrie and put her in a bath of vegetable soup. All this is narrated, of course.

As you might imagine, a show of this character usually leads to real Mommy or Daddy removing green beans, forks, sippy cups, and bowls of soup from Cambrie's tray. But she will not be thwarted. Inevitably, she brings out her "peoples" (her fingers, each of which is a little person), who then chatter, slip, and slide, having a grand ol' time all over her little tray.

By the time dinner is over and we clean her up in the sink, I'll hear, "Mommy! My peoples are getting wet! A-raining on my peoples! 'Ahh! a-wet!' [that was some of the "peoples" yelling out] Mommy, a-peoples need dry off. [commence drying with the towel] All dry, peoples!"

Another impromptu stage for Cambrie's creativity is Grandpa's truck bed. She likes to get up and play in it, but it was hilarious when, with no prompting from us, she started making cookies. (Okay, the first thing she said she was making was baking powder, so I suggested cookies as an alternative. Can you tell we cook together a lot?)

The back corner where she is standing is the oven. The front left corner is the counter where she mixes. The rest of the truck includes a living room and a bed, so I think her house layout need a little work. Still, when she lays down on her "bed," she does declare it "comfy", so she must be doing something right.

Here she is opening the oven door to remove the cookies. She has also been known to bake raisins and candy.

Here she is showing the goods to the camera. Yummy, yummy!

I love to watch her play. I love that I can follow her mind a little better now that she can talk. She can create whole worlds, just for herself! I think I used to have a pretty active imagination as well, but it's certainly been dulled down a lot by the partypoopers of age and experience. It's as though, if I stand close enough to Cambrie, if I watch her hard enough, I'll be able to benefit a little from those pure shots of creative, pressure-free fun.

"Daddy! A-do a picture a-mommy a-Cambrie ina GRASS!!"

I certainly hope I'll be able to give that raging imagination sufficient outlet as she gets older.