Found: An Imagination and A Sense of Style

An Imagination
In the past month or so, J has truly embraced the art of playing pretend. He has a great imagination, and puts it to use regularly.
Cute examples:

• In the middle of playing with something else in the family room, he will drop what he is doing, tell me "night-night," climb up on the couch, ask for the blanket, and then close his eyes and snore! It is sooooo funny. Every time he does it, I laugh and affectionately call him a silly boy, which is probably why he continues to do it. :) Then he giggles, gives me a hug and goes back to what he was doing, after a few rounds of more snoring.
• He talks on the phone, all the time. It doesn't have to be a real toy phone either, one of his cars will suffice. He puts the "phone" up to his ear, says "Hello," pauses to listen, babbles, pauses to listen, babbles, etc, then says, "Bye-bye," and hangs up the phone by putting it down.
• He loves to "eat" his new pretend food. Actually he does it with normal food too. He will hold it up to his mouth, just a little bit away, and chomp down with a "aghmph" sound. If he is really eating, we tell him to take a big bite, not just pretend. If it is is play food, he then offers it to us. I will play along and take a "bite" as well, unless he actually had it in his mouth. C doesn't though, and just tells J that it is all for him.
• Final example- in the bathtub, maybe a week or so ago, he was playing with his bath toys or something and bumped his foot against the drain plug. He hung his head down and started crying. I was thinking it couldn't have hurt that much, but ok... sometimes he blows little bumps out of proportion like that. I told J, that he was ok, and I could kiss it to make it all better, if he needed me to. Keep in mind he had his head down this whole time, so I couldn't actually see his face, since I was kneeling outside the tub. Then the little stinker, turned his head sideways and giggled! He was totally faking it! First time he had ever done that.
  

A Sense of Style
For awhile now, I have been trying to engage J in helping to pick out his clothes and work towards independently dressing himself. He was mostly content to just let me choose, and then let me help him completely while dressing. I would ask him what he wanted to wear, and he would just ignore me.
However, just this last week, he has started going to the closet when I ask him. I hold him up and tell him to pick out a shirt and I show him where the shirts are, "From here to here." He usually touches two, and they haven't been right next to each other either, so I think he truly is picking. So, I take both of them off the closet bar and hold them up for him, telling him he has to pick only one. He looks at them for a bit and then will grab one of them. Then I hold him up for him to choose pants. He either touches two again and we do the same thing, or he picks out one pair.
Keep in mind, I always plan to put him in whatever he picks out, no matter what. However, he has managed to pick out coordinating outfits every time we have done this! My boy has a GQ sense of style!
Now if only he would decide to put his pants and shirt on all by himself. At least he does try with his socks and shoes, though he isn't there yet. Oh well, it will come. :) No pictures of his choices though. :( I'll have to take some pictures this week, while we are hanging out with my nephew.