I have been watching Little Miss play of late and I have surmised that there is only a couple of types of games that she plays.

Firstly there are those things that you really couldn’t call games - things like parks and swings, running around like a mad thing, generally expending the type of frantic nervous energy that only the young possess. This is just full bore madness expressed through physical activity - and is tiring to watch.

Then there is ‘entertainment play’ - this is singing songs, dancing, drawing, painting etc. All those things that are obviously innate in the species as we have been doing it ever since we have existed. I just find it very entertaining to watch all the kids sing and dance and express themselves through such expressions - I can’t remember the last time I did it myself, and I can’t remember the last time I looked as happy as Little Miss does when making up a ‘performance’ for her audience. There may be a tip in that for us old bitter bastards.

Finally, there is to me the most intriguing of games, and these aren’t actually games as such, but enactments of life. Sometimes it is Little Miss replaying through things she does in her day via her dolls. Sometimes she is reenacting what she has seen - like giving dolly a bath the same as Wife bathes our baby Usurper. Then there is the games where she pretends to be doing things she knows about, but has never actually done, like the ‘I’m going to work on the train’ game, where she heads off to work on the train and makes up what she thinks it is like for Daddy to go to work on the train.

I can guarantee her train rides are very similar to mine - although she has never been with me on a normal work day:
1. She lugs a couple of big bags on with her.
2. She often has a little ‘nap’ on her ride
3. There is always at least one troublesome passenger (generally Wife, Usurper or myself, none of us actually completely understand the complexity of the game.)

The one real big difference though is that on her ride there often is ice cream - I wonder if she thinks I spend most my daily commute enjoying some ice cream with sprinkles on top - ahhhh if only it was true, I think on Monday I AM going to have ice cream with sprinkles on the train