THE BLUE MEN

Please let me reference this post by saying that I had imaginary friends and turned out just fine......

The other day Fire Cracker and I were sitting down reading and talking. Sparkler walked up and Fire Cracker said, "Hi Gigi!". Do what???? So I asked him to repeat what he said and sure enough he was calling Sparker by the name Gigi. He proceeded to tell me that the blue men call her Gigi. I asked where the blue men were and he said at the doctors office. I asked a few more questions, but as you can imagine with a 2 year old, there were not many more details. A few days later Fire Cracker came up and asked me if Gigi could have an apple! Then he told me that the blue men sometimes called her Tiny and we could call her either one!

Now if you have never had a converstaion with a child who is saying silly things like this, the issue can be a bit daunting. Thoughts race through your head like: where did this child hear this, what his s/he thinking, is s/he ok, do we need to go see a doctor, how could they come up with things like this,what have I done to this child?! Then you laugh because it really is funny. At least to me. Fire Cracker was as serious as he could be which made it even funnier.

Fortunately for us, this was not the first encounter with imaginary friends. When Bottle Rocket was 3 he told people he had another brother who was a doctor (we only had 2 kids then) . He also told us that his brother's mom was named Foxy......hehe. This first time around we were a bit wierded out and made a few phone calls to verify that this was normal! It went on for about 6 months and then he never mentioned it again.

It is amazing what kids can think of and come up with. But research shows that imaginary friends are in deed normal during childhood. It can even be a sign of creativity. I can relate. I used to sit on the dog house in our yard and teach school to my imaginary friends! At night they slept in the bushes out front! I am sure my parents never worried about me ;-)!