The other day my seven-year-old daughter was watching my four-year-old talking and motioning to a few other people whom no one else could see.
"Mom…is it good or bad to have imagination?" the seven-year-old asked. Since I had a mouth full of food at that particular moment, I just gave her a thumbs up and nodded to show it was a good thing. Unfortunately, I think that she was looking for another reason to put down her little sister. Fortunately, imagination is one thing we have in large supply around her.
My seven-year-old used to turn anything and everything into people. One night I came to bed only to find a green bean "baby" had been put to sleep on my pillow. These days her imagination has taken a different form. Too often she all too easily envisions scary events and "monsters" that require us to give her a dose of reality to bring back perspective. I see a healthier version of her imagination in the way that she enters deeply and readily into the books she's reading.
My four-year-old is at the delightful stage of imagining friends and new family members being all around her wherever we go. Tonight baby "Jack" needed to have his teeth brushed, and she held him up to the sink so he could spit at the same time her real brother was spitting. Another night she turned from an actual conversation to find out from a pretend friend the answer to a question her dad had asked. I love to eavesdrop on her "alone times" because I hear the craziest things come out of her mouth; I just never know who the other actual speaker might be.
Even my two-year-old is starting to demonstrate an ability to make something out of nothing. Today while having a conversation with a friend, I watched him punch a button on his cell phone and then jaw away into the mouthpiece. Whoever was on the other end of that call needed to listen closely because he had a lot to say.
I miss the days when I could create a whole world for myself out of thin air. Now, however, I'm content to live vicariously through the worlds my children introduce to me.
(Photo by doug88888)
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