A Pretend Picnic

This is a simple post, but one very dear to my heart.  Since adopting Mercy she has been learning what it means to play.  She has learned to stack blocks, she has learned to push buttons to make toys work, she has learned to push objects into containers or open containers to take objects out.  She has learned to turn the pages of a book and is beginning to point to pictures.  But yesterday was the very first time she finally used her imagination to pretend play.  For me this was huge.  I'm not sure why it was so important to me, but I got choked up when it finally happened.  We had a picnic together and for the very first time she picked up the cup and "pretended" to drink from it, and then she picked up one of the food items and "pretended" to eat it.  This is something we have sat down a played many many times and I always pretend and she always looks at me like I've lost my marbles.  But yesterday she engaged, she joined in, she pretended too and we had a "pretend" picnic.  It was so much fun and the smile on her little face underneath that empty cup, for me, was total joy.

I just wanted to share, maybe more for myself then for any followers.