Does your kid pretend to be a certain pet/animal or do they convey a pet-like quality by choice or unintentionally? When raising our children, most of us go through the common pet commands like “No”, “Sit”, “Stay”, and “Don’t eat that!”, which means we are at least partly at fault for this use of imagination.

Is it wrong? I don’t think so. When I was a kid I used to steal and eat our dogs’ Milk Bones, after waving it in their face, of course. In retrospect, I’m lucky I still have a face since we had a doberman. And I loved when my mom would set out a bowl of water for me to lap up just like a real boy puppy! C’mon, I know there are others out there who did the same if not worse.

When Avery was only a few months old, Going Mom and I decided she sounded like a Pterodactyl when she hunched forward. It was cute, and for whatever reason,  a Pterodactyl was the first thing that came to mind. If dinosaurs were still around, I’m positive they’d be suitable as pets, right? Just imagine, that’d be a ginormous bird cage! Maybe they would replace parrots on a pirate’s shoulder…..

Or maybe not.

Sorry, I was drifting off trying to imagine a pterodactyl perched on a pirate as he sailed overseas. Cool visual, huh? Just me? Damn.

Anywho, Avery no longer expresses pterodactyl-like qualities but acts more like a kitty nowadays. As I mentioned before, us parents are at least a little at fault, and this is where I’ll take most of the blame.

Avery has been making squeaky sounds every time she sees our fat black cat, Lou (we call him Fatty), and she’s become quite intrigued by the fat feline.

One day, after spitting out a spinach omelette I cooked for her, I asked her to be a good kitty and eat her “kitty food”. Lo and behold, she perked up, made a squeak (how a kitty sounds, apparently), and gladly ate the green-egged concoction I created. Score!

Since then I’ve been using the kitty trick (is it really a trick?) to get her to eat the more savory items I make.

She normally enjoys the food I cook, but some of the initial bites take some kitty work, so pretending our daughter is a kitty has proved quite helpful and cute as well!

Of course I had to share it with the world on Instagram….

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I may have posted several takes, but it’s hard to resist!

I’m not sure how long Avery will let us use her being a kitty as a way to eat her food, but it’s nice not picking up so much food from the floor, and we’ll use it as long as possible.

I asked the Dad Bloggers group I’m a member of on Facebook and all of the responses had dads saying their kids act as some sort of pet/animal, or did at one time. One dad said all of his kids pretend to be some sort of animal, but his 4 year old has now moved on to her favorite band members. Hey, whatever works, right?

Other dads said their kids pretend to be anything ranging from a frilled lizard, a giant tortoise (love it!), and of course a dog, which the dad said he hates since they play the biting roll all too real. Ouch!

One of the dads even wrote on his blog, Daughter of the Beard, titled “The Hunger Games” about how they play a game pretending various animals are trying to steal his daughter’s food. Here’s part of his post explaining the game he plays with his daughter to get her to eat better:

BUT! We have a game. We have a game that works almost every time. All we have to do… is encourage her to steal and lie! You read that right, and I’m not sure how I feel about it either.

Here is how it works: First we put some food from her plate on her fork and say, “Phia, I think I’d like to eat this bite so keep an eye on it and make sure no one else eats it!” and then we turn our head to look at something else; she immediately STEALS the bite and eats it; she then taps the person on the shoulder and points to the empty fork and they say, “What!? Who ate my bite?”; then she will LIE and blame it on either someone else at the table or on some mythical squirrel/bear/bird etc… that did it. This repeats and escalates in incredulous disbelief at the disappearing bites until all the food is gone!

Tell me, what animals do your kids pretend to be? If they are grown, did they used to pretend?

Share your stories below, I’d love to hear.