Imagination at its peak

Elijah is such a good imaginative and independent player. He makes up entire pretend worlds in our home. He will whiz by me mumbling under his breath, "Oh, ok. Gotta go brush teeth in mine home. Ok, close the door quick. Bye, Mom." "Um, bye?!" I peek in to see this..



"Oh, hi, Elijah! I'm so glad you're brushing your teeth!" "Hi, Mom! Come into mine home! Close the door quick!"



And then suddenly our world turns into a grocery store or a gas station or a Lowe's or a pirate ship. I just go with the flow!

I bought a huge, fresh head of garlic recently and I vaguely remember seeing Elijah toting it around the house. He has recently learned how to get into the refrigerator, which has both its benefits (he can get his own milk) and downfalls (my garlic goes missing). I went to put three large, delicious cloves of garlic into a soup I was making on Sunday, and it was nowhere to be found. Who knows where in our home it might be, and won't that be fun to find in 3 months?

Last night I was gathering all of the ten Swimmy's fishies to send back to preschool today, and four were missing. "Elijah? Where are Swimmy's fishies? We have to return them tomorrow!" "Ummmmm...fishies in fwidge!" They were enjoying themselves in the cheese drawer.

Two minutes later, Elijah informed us that his little dvd player wasn't working. "It not works!" So Dan and I went over to investigate. Every time we put a dvd in, it would make a clicking sound and nothing would come up on the screen. I finally walked away, as I saw no hope. I heard Dan say, "Well THIS might be a problem!" I peeked around the corner and saw him holding up a piece of edamame. "Honey, green soybeans do not go inside your dvd player!" "Oh, ok. Sowwy, Mom."

We have two new members in our family

I've mentioned this before, but Elijah's hands have been his little imaginary friends since he was a baby. Since he's been around a year old, his hands have "talked" back and forth to each other. And to him. And to Dan and me. It has always been cute, and over time the talking between them has become more discernible. Over Christmas vacation, we noticed that Hands would climb to the top of a box and jump off and hurt themselves. Or they would fly through the air. Or say something silly. Or whatever. Suffice it to say they were active.

Last night as I was putting Elijah to bed, he started talking to his hands. Then he looked at me and showed me his right hand and said, "Is Melissa!" "Oh, um, hi, Melissa!" Then he showed me his left hand and said, "Is Jeenon!" "Nice to meet you, Jeenon!" He seemed a little nervous about it, like he didn't know how kindly I would take to officially "meeting" his hands. Little does he know about my imaginary-friend-filled past! Mimi, Susie, Tenspeed and Vodka occupied my head until I was at least 5. Imaginary friends are something I most definitely understand!

Then Elijah started using different voices for each friend, and that had me a little weirded out. Melissa has a nice, high voice and Jeenon has a deep, gravelly, redrum-like voice. Hmmmmm.

When I put him to bed, both Melissa and Jeenon said "good night" to me, and I found myself saying, "Good night, guys! Oh, um, I mean, good night, Elijah." This morning when I got him out of bed, he thrust both hands in my face and said, "Good morning! Good morning!" Oh, good morning, guys!

Life with a wildly imaginative and smart little boy is so much fun!!

Imagination

(Sarah, I got this idea from your recent post!)

Elijah seems to have such a creative mind and a vivid imagination. Of course, since he can't talk yet I don't know this for sure, but it really seems to be the case. He constantly jabbers to himself in an animated tone with lots of inflection and unique sounds. Sometimes his fingers/hands talk to each other, sometimes they talk to him and sometimes they talk to objects around him. His hands like to "sit" in his toy cars/trucks while his fingers talk to him as they drive. I cannot imagine what must be going on in his mind, but it is so interesting to watch and listen to all of this.

I wonder if this sort of thing is genetic. If Elijah is anything like me, he is in for a lifetime of weirdness. :) I discovered my group of imaginary friends at a very young age: Mimi, Tenspeed, Vodka (no idea where I got this name as a 2-year-old) and Susie. To this day I could draw a picture of what each of them look like, in detail. Mimi was the leader and she occasionally liked to drive the other three across the country in her white van to go on vacations. While they were away on their journeys I would get sad and miss them. My little team of invisible pals was the first sign that my imagination was a little bit crazy. Then other things came.. When my dad would take a few minutes too long in the store (which was and still is common...right, family?), I would sit in the car and imagine Bert and Ernie's evil twins coming into the store through the ceiling in a spaceship and abducting him. By the time he got back to the car I would be sobbing crazily, believing he was already a resident of Evil Sesame Street. I have also always had super vivid, crazy dreams. I still vividly remember dreams I had when I was three years old. Now, years later, and having practiced a lot, I can do some pretty cool stuff in my dreams. I can control dreams...I can go skydiving and flying whenever I want to, and I can do lots of other things that I won't mention because you'll really think I'm insane. I once even talked to Elijah as an adult in a dream (very cool)!

Now that you all know I'm crazy.. I've been wondering lately if Elijah will have a vivid imagination, too, and if some day he will be telling his friends and family about the time he convinced himself that his mom was a vampire.

Did anyone else have imaginary friends? Anyone else whose imagination convinces them of impossible things? Am I the only weird one? Share your stories! (If there are no stories, I'll check myself in..)