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..)