Mommy found a used clubhouse at the Metuchen town-wide yard sale, so she order two figures to go with it. When they arrived, Austen listened to the automated voices for a minute, then took over. For the next half hour, Minnie and Daisy engaged in a long, rambling, Austen-generated conversation as they traveled about the room and in and out of the playhouse. Austen loves make-believe, back-and-forth conversations, or creating dialog, as a novelist would say. Often the words she uses are similar to ones from exchanges Mommy and Austen have had, or they have to do with some issue Austen is currently dealing with, such as not being scared at preschool.
Austen definitely recognizes the characters from her favorite TV programs and gravitates toward their toys, but … …her favorite playtime activities are most creative (and non-commercial): building things with Legos and doing art projects with paper, markers, stamps and glue.