That’s the name of Emma’s favorite game these days. She loves to role play and will ask me, Elena, or her Ela (Abuela) to “be Emma” and she will “be the Mommy”. She will say, “Can you be Emma?”. It’s her way of saying, I want to be in control. She is quite the control freak. Once she assumes that role, she will act out real life events that have transpired in her life. She will tell you, “Emma, you are sick now because you put the dirty toys in your mouth.”. Or “Baby, you can’t go to ballet class today because you were being disrespectful.”. She loves to act things out and pretend, and clearly a lot of it is a verbal reinforcement of things we tell her. Right now it is pretty much the only game she asks to play daily.
It’s not all bad and reprimand, she also likes to take care of her Emma. She will take your temperature, change your diaper, and give you vitamins to nurse you back to health.
To keep things interesting, Elena and I sometimes mimic Emma’s uncontrollable fits and tantrums to see how she responds to the situation, which gives her a new perspective on her own behavior.
