Sunday we put together Jameson’s play kitchen! Brian was cleaning out the basement and got tired of staring at the extra large box which we purchased a long time ago. We did anticipate giving it to him before his birthday, when it got cooler out, so this was the right time!

Since Brian does the cooking in our house, we thought Jameson might naturally want to imitate him this way. He will undoubtedly get tools and other traditional “boy” toys, but this item was insisted on by me, who enjoys the fruits of Brian’s labor in the kitchen.

Also, I really wanted to encourage some imaginary play, since a lot of Jameson’s play is rough housing and activities like standing on stools, pillows, boxes and containers.

Jameson insisted on being a helper while we built it. He would take pieces to Brian whenever asked, and wanted to use the screw driver to help put things together.

He also knows the word “batteries” now and whenever something doesn’t work, he’ll say “battwies” and follows that with a “daddy” because I frequently tell him that daddy will fix things. So this time, I put in the batteries for the kitchen.

Once it was all finished, we had Jameson make us some broccoli, apple and bananas. The set came with food, and we went through each of them and Jameson repeated after me.

The following day, we had the cutest conversation about his kitchen:

Me: Are you putting Mr. Bear in the microwave?
J: yeah
Me: oh is Mr. Bear all done? Are you going to eat Mr. Bear now?
J: yeah
(Mr.s Bear and Blanket then made their rounds in the fridge and stove shortly after)

Before Trick or Treat, Aunt Melissa came over and they played with his new kitchen too. It’s fun to ask him for a fork, and he’ll run back to get it.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t use the burners which light up and make noise as much as the microwave, which doesn’t make any noise at all but he will press the fake buttons anyway. Pretty cute!

We moved his toy box into the dining room for now since he’s not playing with much in there. So far, the kitchen’s getting a decent amount of use, even if he does like putting unrelated toys into the cubbies!