floro-anthropomorphology?

Okay, we all know my daughter is a little, um, unique. She comes up with the oddest ways to use toys ... like using her Duplo blocks to make flat designs rather than buildings or people or cars or whatever. And using her paints to make formless blobs because she likes the feeling of the painting and doesn't care what it looks like when she's done.

But the latest craze is flowers. Everything is a flower. Train tracks, tinker toys, lego creations, pop-ons, random pipe cleaners, the spinning wheels from her marble run, popsicle sticks, plastic buttons, knitting needles, pieces of soap ... if it's laying around the house, chances are, she's decided it's a flower.

And not only a flower, a talking flower with a backstory and dialogue. I can't use the spinners when I build her marble run, for example, because "the rest of the flower family would be really sad if the mommy flower had to go away, even if she came back later on." She won't play with dolls, doesn't give stuffed animals a second glance, and only wants to use her dollhouse so she can move around the furniture, but the pretend shrubbery she's got in the dining room are living full, rich lives.

Add to that her new fascination for making up her own words, and I end up having to clutch sweaty "bouquets" of plastic-button "pisswiss" flowers until she tells me I'm allowed to put them down ... because heaven help you if you fail to appreciate the wonder that is her floral creation.

And don't get me started on how earlier this summer her imaginary "friends" wouldn't let her play with them because she wasn't wearing the right color of dress. Nothing like being jilted by people you made up in your head to show your strong sense of self-esteem.