All three loved a wooden puppet theater and a bag of assorted puppets. Some of the puppets were nicely made and some were Happy Meal toys. We always laughed at the play that involved a plastic dinosaur head, a tiny Santa Claus, and a monkey. Good family fun.

but, like you said, i learn so much from the dialoging my three year old son does when he is playing. and i feel like they play times give me chance to speak to his fears and concerns.

I was very stressed last fall when my (then) four year old was starting kindergarten and couldn’t read or write (at all) and didn’t even recognize the entire alphabet. I knew other kids starting school would be able to do this stuff, and that lots of parents teach them this before they go to kindergarten. But I kept insisting that my son had his whole life to be in school, that ages 0-4 were just for FUN. So we skipped the reading, writing and ‘rithmetic and rolled around on the carpet, built forts, chased Buzz Lightyear to the top of a mountain, and ran around yelling and being silly. And he is such a creative, imaginative little boy, and all his talents are spilling out now that he is in school. I love watching him create something out of nothing and explain an elaborate “made up” game to his younger brother, and then see them carry it out. It’s amazing.

And while (as a previous commenter posted) yes, sometimes they do want me, and only me, all the time, things are getting better. Having three kids close in age means they have each other to play with as well – so it is some days taking some of the heat off of mommy. Those are the days I get to actually make dinner

And your points are excellent (are you sure you haven’t studied child development? I *have* and your points are much better than I could have put together!!) and so true. I learn TONS from playing with the boys . . . learning things about school, about their fears, their joy, their hopes . . . and stuff they would never tell me if we were sitting down face to face “discussing” it.