I used to pretend I was an animal all the time, too, although in my case it was usually a bird.
Ask your wife what your daughter should be pretending?
And if it would make her feel happier, she might suggest playing with your daughter something like, “Oh, here’s Sam the Puppy, who needs rescuing because…”
When my daughter was five she was a dog for weeks. This included out in public.
We were waiting at the doctor’s office one day, and she was on all fours, barking and running in circles. Across from us was another mom. Her daughter was about the same age, but she was sitting and reading a book.
I have to admit it was a little embarrassing. I whispered to my daughter, “Why don’t you go say hello to that little girl?” Kate proceeded to crawl over, sit up like a dog and bark at this other child.
Then the other girl lowered her book and said very loudly, “ME-OW”. 
My daughter was a dragon. Still loves them.
I was a horse. Still love.
It’s all good.
Add me to the list of those who had a two-legged cat for about 6 months. I think she was about 4 or 5.
It was far less disconcerting than when she decided she was Jane from Mary Poppins at age 3, and would only obey or follow directions if I said them in a posh Britishish accent and followed them with “spit-spot!” I actually discussed that one with a child psychologist, because it was so full time that I became concerned she was dissociating or something. The shrink spent a little time talking with her and let me know that it seemed functional, she knew she wasn’t really Jane, but she knew that Jane was polite and obedient, while WhyDaughter was a bit stubborn about obedience. Being “Jane”, she gave herself permission to be obedient without losing her sense of self identity as an independent person. Go figure. So for about a year, I’d just call her Jane whenever I needed her to do something.
Which was in turn less disturbing than when she was 4 and became Little Orphan Annie and insisted I yell at her to mop the floor and then shut her in the closet. At that point, I had to put my foot down, and it was very much a “what would the neighbors say” thing. While I totally understood that she was “playing Annie,” I can only imagine the police report about my “abused” daughter who I shut in the closet.
So she shut herself in the closet instead. :smack:
Kids play all kinds of make believe. My guess is things will actually be less repetitive at school, where the kids take turns deciding what to make believe. She will lead them in being cats for a while, and then some other kid will suggest they shut each other in the closet for a while.
From Alice in Wonderland:
“Nurse! Do let’s pretend that I’m a hungry hyena, and you’re a bone!”
Thanks to Johnny Weismueller era** Tarzan** movies I wanted so badly to be a crocodile. Especially the sliding off the bank into the river. That looked so cool.
I’m going to go against the grain here and tell you that in my opinion your daughter is dangerously… oh, not I’m not. As a children’s librarian and parent, what you’ve described is not only normal it’s barely noteworthy.
One of my brothers was… the whole zoo in half an hour, a cousin liked to be a horse, my other brother spent some months deciding what animal he’d be and eventually decided on none, my nephew has been known to be a dog (“but I don’t slobber as much as Luna”) and my niece a cat (“we already have a dog and dogs get ordered around but nobody tries to order cats around because it’s not going to work”).
You ask me, it’s the grownups finding it weird who need some cold showers.
Actually, that’s from Through the Looking Glass. But, much respect for coming up with a totally appropriate Alice quote that I didn’t recognize.
I still remember an elementary school teacher humiliating me for make-believe play at recess. It took something from me. Let her play. All children are weird. They need to work it out with each other.
OhmyGod, I thought the Jane/Mary Poppins thing was only us! With my kid it was only occasionally, mainly when we were doing housework or cooking - and yeah, it was clearly about being easily obedient and about everything falling neatly into place and being very organised. And possibly about sometimes wishing she had the Ultimate Perfectly Organised Mama
Nothing wrong with pretend play at that age. In fact, the opposite is when you need to worry. My son absolutely abhorred pretend play of any kind in pre-kindergarten. He’d draw himself up and say, with perfect enunciation and in a lofty tone, “I. don’t. pretend.” His teachers, and later even the pediatric developmental specialist the school insisted that we see, never could explain it.
He’s now 17 and still an unusual kid, although thankfully he’s close enough to normal to manage just fine.
Anyway … the only thing I would worry about at all is the part I quoted above. Probably it’s nothing, but as the parent of an oddball child I learned to be hypersensitive to such things. In my experience, parents LOVE playdates - the more the better. It’s a reciprocity thing: you take my brat off my hands for an afternoon, and next week I’ll take yours.
I don’t mean to worry you, but I would start to think that I was the parent of “the weird kid” if it was excessively hard to set up playdates. (Heck, even my son got invited for playdates and his classmates always accepted invitations to our house; the hard part was convincing him that it was a good idea.)
Okay, so you know it’s not weird.
I’d also like to add that this whole attitude of: “Don’t be yourself because others might think you’re weird.” is not a good attitude to have towards raising a child.
Trust me on this. Kids will pick up on it and they will resent you for it.
I’ll have a word with my wife. She tends to be extremely prescriptive about behaviour, and worries far too much, in my opinion, about “face” - the misguided impression that the Behaviour Police will bust our joint if we do not behave as a Standard Family.
As for this…
I think it’s more likely that it’s the other way round: it’s my wife and I that are seen as the weird ones. We’re both quite introverted, and both foreigners, and trying to juggle between ethnic communities.
There are the English, who, having their own long established friends, usually seem not interested in making new ones - can’t imagine why, tho. The Chinese, according to my wife, are divided: Taiwanese don’t go along with Mainland Chinese don’t go along with Malaysian Chinese and so on, and all of them prefer to chase English people for friendship.
As for the Italians, that could just be me - I’m just not good at interacting with people.
Lil’ Neville, who will be 3 in August, likes to play “mommy and baby cat” with me.
Lots of kids love to repeat things, to the point where it drives their parents crazy.
No, it’s not weird, and the other kids won’t think it’s weird. The other kids will play being cats with her, then they will play being astronauts or people waiting for the bus, or build forts or something. Kids need their imagination exercised as much as any other muscle.
Regards,
Shodan
Totally not weird, though it is a bit weird that you play this with her IMHO. My kids played games like this with the neighbor kids for years, say ages 3- 8 or so. My kids are perfect.
I really, really get your concerns about not being able to teach your kid how to make friends. My husband and I are really worried about it (Farticus is only nine months old so it isn’t an issue yet.)
Now if she wants to start using a litter box, then it becomes much weirder.
I was a horse.
Ask your wife why she thinks this is wrong. Religious training? Rigid parents? Something awful happened to her and “playacting” was part of the grooming?