Embracing your inner child...

So post Christmas my house now resembles an aisle in Toys R Us, every shelf, surface and available space has toys of every nature rammed onto or into it! Emily now has two toys boxes, both full and yet somehow my lounge floor space has still strunk and I already removed the coffee table last year. Most of the lounge is taken up by a huge, pink, trampoline (kindly donated and I mean this most sincerely, by a family friend), numerous items that Emily will either push around or sits on while I push her around, books, building blocks, jigsaws, teddies, a pretend till that actually has a scanner that makes the bleeping noise (no...really!), a play kettle - one of two she received, the other living upstairs in her play kitchen with a play toaster, play washing machine, play ironing board, a dolly's cot, dressing up clothes, fairy costumes (x 2), a magnetic drawing board, more books, teddies, teddies, teddies, teddies, did I mention teddies? A Waybaloo Nok Tok, Tickle me Elmo and on and on and on. You get the idea. Do I really only have one child? I keep expecting at least another one or two to appear from somewhere.


So you would have thought with all this to amuse her she would embrace hours of fun filled entertainment. However being, as yet, an only child (despite my suspicions that there may be more children around here somewhere), mummy becomes play mate to her doting daughter. So my days are now filled with not just real domestic chores but pretend ones also. I mean really, trust me ironing is still ironing even when it's pretend!


However I have to say that it's hard not to embrace your inner child, when decked out in fairy wings, sitting in the middle of your little girls bedroom being served imaginary food on plastic plates and drinking imaginary tea out of cups that smell suspiciously like apple juice. Even I have to admit that maybe it's just better to 'go with it' sometimes. Besides it beats the hell out of tackling the real piles of washing up waiting for you downstairs.


And I know I am not alone. Come on hands up, how many of you stood imaging yourself playing with your children's toys before purchasing them? Yes, yes you know who you are! And why not, we all need an excuse to behave like the children we still are, on occasion. Otherwise life just gets a little bit too serious.


Although I do have just one question;


"How come I still get left with the imaginary washing up??!"