I have so many memories of my childhood and how much I loved toys. I'll never forget the Christmas morning I woke up with Swift Heart Rabbit in bed with me or all of the hours I spent with My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Thundercats, Popples, Transformers, He-man/She-ra, Sylvanian Families, etc. And there was always Lite Brite and those read along record sets and lego and all of my art supplies. I played by myself most of the time and was very content to do so.
DS is so different. He wants to play with someone else at all times. As much as I remember setting up scenes and stories with my toys and pretending for hours on end, I don't seem to be able to tolerate it at all anymore. I honestly have fallen asleep trying to engage DS in pretend play because I'm so bored. He will play pretend with other kids, but never on his own. And obviously not with me :p I wonder if other parents are just full of imaginative ideas and are better able to sell pretend play at home? Whatever part of me was able to enjoy pretending apparently fully matured into a 100% boring adult brain!
No, it's pretty boring as an adult.
I think there's a some sort of cognitive switch that occurs in middle school where you go from "Pretend Play is AWESOME" to "Um, this is really boring. I have no idea what to do here."
