Imaginary Friends

My little girl (4) has had a number of imaginary friends over the past couple of years.  Annie, Seiki, Minneo, Chuckie, Dang, and some others that I wish I wrote down earlier but forgot.   She used to bring up her friends on a daily basis, but now they have started to be mentioned less and less, so I thought I would dedicate a page or so to them before they are completely gone. 

Annie and Seiki have hung around for awhile now and my daughter brings them up often.  While at gymnastics, she fell off the balance beam and quickly turned around and screamed a barrage of insults at Annie, who had obviously pushed her.   

Another time I found her in her dad’s office crying, holding her hand, and screaming at Annie again.  I asked what happened, and she explained that Annie had convinced her to touch the lightbulb, making her burn her hand.  She still isn’t over that one.  

The other day my daughter started setting the table with her princess dishes and pretend cupcakes, getting ready for a birthday party.  She was slamming each plastic dish on the table with an exasperated sigh.   Scowling, she told me,  “I’m coming to Annie’s birthday party today, but she is definitely NOT my friend”.

I asked her some questions about her friends (and tried to type as fast as she was talking):

Annie is 6.   Her sister is Seiki (who Lia said “Seeks up on people”, but I have taken some liberties with her name spelling).  They have a brother named Charlie.   Their family lives in Oak Park,  but sometimes they live with us.  Annie has freckles, blond hair and red lips.  She likes to wear a shirt with Hawaii on it and pants with flowers and bunnies.  Annie is nice now, but she used to be mean.   Seiki looks like Lia, but with grey eyes and super duper red lips, she likes to wear a shirt with the flag of Palestine (thank you Montessori) on it,  and jeans with flowers and kitty-cats on them.  Charlie has short blonde hair, blue eyes, and he loves to wear dinosaur shirts with dinosaur-polkadot blue jeans.

Chuckie and Dang are friends, they are not nice,  they are mean.  They are 8 years old.  They are like teenagers.  Dang dangs people on the head.   Chuckie punches people and kicks them in the face, and pokes their eyes and “waps them around”.   I’m very familiar with the torture methods of Chuckie and Dang,  I remember her telling me a year ago:  “They waps you awound with a wope--and then I tell them, wou get out of here wou wittle cweeps”!!

I had started to notice a pattern with a few of her friends.  Seiki “seeks up on people”.  Dang “Dangs people on the head”.  So when I asked her about her new friend, ‘Minneo’, I said,  “What does Minneo do”?  She rolled her eyes as if to say “DUH” and then--
“She plays soccer”.

-End of Interview-