The Many Faces of Ben

Ben's latest delight is his dress-up box. We noticed he liked trying on our clothes and shoes, so we collected him some of our old things and all of his costumes, bought a few items from the dollar store (sunglasses, an Elmo watch), and threw everything in a cardboard box. Now he likes to drag it out of his closet and put things on.

His favorite game at the moment, however, requires no costume: he pretends to be a cat. Last night he even stretched out on the back of the couch, where the cats sleep, and declared he was napping.
He likes to meow to me and have me meow back. He shows me where his imaginary tail and whiskers are. (My friend Karen may be feeling some alarm at this; she still remembers the time I said in college I thought it would be funny to raise a child to think he was a dog. I swear that was a joke, and Ben has come up with the cat game all by himself.)

As Ben learns about the world around him, he likes to sort people into categories: Daddy is a man, Mama is a woman, he is a boy. It's fun to watch him simultaneously label himself and use play to move beyond the labels.