Noah loves to pretend, and he loves to re-create whatever is going on in our lives at the current time. So, lately he's been various versions of the "fix-it guy." He goes outside and rings the doorbell, and when I answer, he says something like, "Hi! I'm Aaron. I'm the siding guy. I'm here to fix your siding. Tell me what's wrong." Then I take him to wherever the pretend work area is for the day and he starts to work. Here, he's getting the walls ready for the new siding.
The new siding gets nailed up. The new siding is made out of toilet paper, but Aaron promises me that it will stand up to the weather.
Weekdays tend to be for pretend projects, but the real action happens on Saturdays. On Saturdays, "Aaron" takes a break and Noah does the real work with Daddy. On a recent Saturday, Noah worked with Daddy to change out a few door handles and locks. In this picture, he's taking a break from working on a lock to say "hmm..." as he looked around the porch.
Playing with Daddy's tools
Measuring the siding that needs to be "replaced." Look at all the tools that Noah has taken out of Daddy's toolbox! One of the most interesting things that I've noticed about Noah's pretend play is that he's practicing the art of striking up a conversation, just like he overhears when real "fix-it guys" come over. One day, he was pretending to be "Aaron the roofer" and he looked at my Journey Church t-shirt and said, "I see you have a Journey Church shirt on. Do you go to Journey Church?" I said "yes." He said, "Oh! I think I've seen you there!" Also, he starts up conversations by saying something about the weather or asking questions about changes we've made to the house. He cracks me up.
