Patty Mayeux Blog

I recently engaged in a pretend world with two experts, my 6- and 9-year-old granddaughters, while visiting our daughter and her family overseas (more on the joys of travel in Wednesday’s Substack post). We played the Restaurant Game because I had made them each an apron with pockets for their notepads and pens, because in this game the cooks doubled as waitstaff. We created an extensive menu, named the restaurant The Circular Restaurant (complete with a circular sign that boasted a real fork and spoon), and cooked grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. We giggled at our own joke; if anyone ordered anything else off the menu, we told them we had just sold the last order to the customer before them, OR they received fake food from the bounty of wooden fruits and vegetables from their play bin. The worlds of real and pretend collided as we served them actual toasty sandwiches and piping hot soup. All we needed for our day of entertainment was a marker and paper and wild imaginations. When was the last time you gave into pretending? Go for it. You may just find that simple grilled cheese and tomato soup never tasted so good.