Cousins Playtime

I brought Caleb over to Yeeyee's house on Sat so that Caleb could play with Nic and Nat. I'm glad to say that Caleb and Nic's love-hate relationship has improved tremendously over the past year and they play a lot better together now. Gone are the days where Nic's idea of playing with Caleb is to snatch whatever he's playing with and Caleb's way of reacting is to stand there and wail. Ok, it still happens occasionally but more of once in a blue moon, and Caleb has learnt to stand up for himself more and will try to either put up a fight and hang on to his toy, speak in a very fierce and angry tone to tell Nic that the toy is his, and if all else fails, complain to us and throw in a few tears.
Nowadays, Nic and Caleb are learning to share toys more and they'll play make believe games. Nic will tell Caleb that she's the Mummy and he's the Daddy and they'll role play. Actually I notice that they are imitating us and sometimes when we listen to what they say to each other, it's really hilarious!
Other than playing "Daddy" and "Mummy", Nic is also into pretending to be a princess. (Yeeyee says she can't understand where that influence came from coz we didn't grow up playing with Barbie dolls and such) Anyway, somehow when Nic is the princess, Caleb will follow suit and pretend to be a prince. He doesn't really know how a prince behaves, he just calls himself Prince Caleb since Nic is Princess Nicole. (I've yet to decide whether such behaviour is desirable or not but I'm just leaving him alone for now, since it doesn't happen very frequently and only when he plays with Nic.)

Here' s Nic and Caleb sharing a cupcake together. See Princess Nic's tiara on her head.



Other than Nic and Caleb playing with each other, Nat will also attempt to join in now but only when the two older kids are running or jumping round the house. She's not interested in joining them in playing make believe yet and would wander off to entertain herself. Caleb and Nat actually have a lot of fun when they are just jumping around together. I tend to get a little worried when they play together though coz though they don't really fight over toys, they tend to just throw themselves on each other when they jump up and down. The other day I caught Caleb and Nat jumping on Yeeyee's bed. Caleb was laughing and holding on to Yeeyee's bolster and Nat was behind Caleb and happily jumping away and throwing herself on the bed. Well, Caleb actually sat on Nat's head. Strangely Nat seemed to think it was funny and laughed along with Caleb but I decided to break up their little party coz they look like they'll probably injure each other soon if I don't intervene.

As for Sarah, well, she's still too young to join in any fun at all. Occasionally she'll get some attention from the older ones. They'll come to pat her and attempt to carry her. More often than not, she spends her time watching them play. I'm sure she can't wait to join in the fun coz she starts to laugh when she sees the kids having fun together.

A picture of the cousins.