One of my better parenting ideas.

In retrospect (now that my daughter is 23!) one of my better parenting moves was the play kitchen I made for her when she was about two years old. Inspired by some rolls of hot pink contact paper that I had purchased for a dollar at a yard sale, I stayed up until two am one night and fabricated a kitchen out of cardboard cartons, a dishpan (the sink), small paper plates (the stove burners), corrugated tubing (the faucet), some duct tape, and assorted other items from around the house (I spot some things I wouldn't have now, like the Nestle's Quik!)

It was nothing terribly fancy, definitely not like some of the more elaborate ones I've seen since. I figured she would use it for a little while and then we'd discard it or it would fall apart.

Well to my surprise, it became her very favorite setting for all kinds of imaginative play and lasted for many years! Visiting children were always drawn to it too. And once when we ate dinner at Benihana, we got home and she moved the whole thing and turned it around and stood behind it to make it her chef's station. (Which we thought was terribly clever, in the way parents do. Even when it's just normal childhood behavior. But actually, the way children learn and develop is pretty amazing when you stop to think about it. I wish I still learned that way.)

Eventually, after much use, it got quite bedraggled and she agreed it was time to give it up. But when Mr. Nankie started to hack away at it, she began to cry. So he stopped and we waited another six months and then deconstructed it while she was asleep. Shortly thereafter that same space became the site for the home of her beloved guinea pigs, so the pain was assuaged.

It still amazes me how something so simple captured her interest for so long.