Going to Africa

It's great that the kids have reached the age at which they play together, pretending all sorts of adventures on their own. I'm currently sitting in the living room listening to them upstairs talking about Africa. They've been running all over the house pretending that they were going to Africa. They each have a box that they've been lugging around, and they're currently sitting on their boxes talking about how they are sitting on the bus to Africa. They also pretended tonight that they were hunting the cats (I think to them, hunting means "chasing and finding"). Here is their conversation:

Nora: We still have 5 minutes to get there. I've got my seat belt on!

Milo: Uh, we have 10 minutes to go.

Nora: We have 10 minutes to go. Okay?

Nora: We're there!

Milo: Are we at Africa?

Nora: Yeah we are! There's lots of fun things!

Earlier as I was doing the dishes the kids were running pell mell all over the house and Nora tripped and fell, crying hard. Milo went over to her and hugged her to make her feel better. So sweet. Granted, Nora said "I don't want Milo to hug me!", but his intentions were sweet.

More transcription of what I'm hearing right now:

Nora: We need to go back home! Our dinner's burning!

Milo: Oh no! Our dinner's burning, we better go quick!

Nora: Here we are riding on the bus now!

Milo: Our dinner burned!

Nora: We'd better go see! It already did!

Milo: Oh no! Our dinner burned!

Milo: OUR DINNER BURNED AT THE RESTAURANT!

Nora: Let's bounce up and down on this.

Now they are bouncing on something and cracking up.

Another thing I am enjoying right now is that after about a year and a half of drilling "please" and "thank you" into them with spotty results, it is FINALLY sinking in so that they'll say it now without being prompted. Before, it'd go like this. Kid: I want some milk! Me: That's interesting. Kid: Please? And thank you was even harder. But now they're starting to say please and thank you on their own without having to be reminded. And when we sat down to dinner tonight, Milo said "Thank you for making dinner Mommy!"

Nora: After Africa we're going to go to fly a kite!

Milo: Oh, okay!