Imaginary Friends

If I can't read to Serena, she will often just plop down and 'read' to herself.  If she knows the story, she does a great job retelling it.  If she doesn't know the story, she makes one up that follows her interpretation of the pictures.  It's really entertaining to listen to!  The other day, she was very disappointed to find out a story did not follow her version at all, haha!  Bret, Cody, and Olie all benefit from her storytelling capabilities!  ;)

Cody is in the exersaucer!!!  I'm not too big on baby-contraptions...mostly because I've found my babies just want to be held all the time anyway...but the exersaucer is one of my favorites!  We've had one for each of the kids, and it always keeps them busy for quite a while!  SO nice for this Mommy who is finding it more and more difficult to tote around this adorable lug of a baby!!!

Okay, so I know we've been sick a lot this past month or so, but REALLY?!  More often than not, when Bret passes a trash can or a toilet, he has to stop and pretend to throw up in it!  What a goof!  Now THAT is a budding imagination at work, my friends!  ;)

As usual, big brother and sister are extremely enthusiastic about Cody's newest milestone!

I don't remember if I've mentioned it here yet or not, but over the last few months or so, Serena has fabricated various imaginary friends.  For a while, it was a litter of puppies...three in particular were played with the most often.  Their names were Serena, Kaden, and Cody.  Just today, she got up from her nap with a big story about a bunch of baby frogs she had let out.  They ended up sleeping in the basement tonight.  ;)  When I asked her where they came from, she replied that "they were clean and they said they would be nice, so I let them in."

But, the longest-standing imaginary friend has been "Sink," Olie's daddy.  She came up with him when we were still living in Springville.  Back then, he was kind of a detached person, and only came up in conversations now and then.  The only thing we ever really heard about him was that he worked at a store and sold beds.  At that point, Bret was still more often than not named as Olie's daddy.  ;)  Then, about a month ago, I was taking the kids to the library for storytime when Serena told me that Olie's daddy Sink was going to be there too.  When we got back in the car, Sink came with us and he's been living at our house ever since.  ;)  He's not the sort of imaginary friend that she points to or tells people not to sit on or whatever.  But, he's very much a part of her life.  She makes food for him.  His favorite meal is "mangerous" (when I mispronounced this word, Serena very patiently repeated the word for me in the slow, careful way we use when we're teaching her a new word).  Serena loves to bring all her play food down to my kitchen and make "mangerous" with my mixing bowls and measuring spoons.  Bret gets in on the action too, and I can hardly walk through the kitchen for the array of bowls and utensils scattered about.  But I'm not about to complain, because they're happily occupied while I'm making supper, even if I have to watch my step!!!  ;D  Sink stayed with Serena when Daddy had to go to work while Serena was sick (she missed Daddy very much when she was sick!), and it was about that time that he started to take on more defined traits which made him sound very much like Daddy.  He knows how to make owies feel better.  He knows almost everything.  He's very strong, but not as strong as Daddy.  He's very big (she carefully gestures about 18" wide, haha).  He sleeps in Serena's bed with her.  At first, he slept at the foot of the bed and she slept at the head, but more recently, she's begun to take on the role of Sink's wife (which makes sense, since she's Olie's mommy), so she moved her pillow to the foot of the bed and now sleeps down there with Sink (I'm not sure why Sink couldn't just move, but oh well!).  Jordan likes to pick on Sink...mostly because Serena's reactions are so funny.  ;)  He'll say things like, "Who's bigger, Sink or Daddy?" or "Who's smarter?" or "Who's stronger?" Serena almost always replies "Daddy!" but every now and then, she'll say Sink has the upper hand in some area.  Then Jordan pretends to get upset and threatens to lock Sink out of the house or spank him or something like that.  Serena always starts out laughing, but if Jordan teases for too long, she might start getting upset.  ;)  Anyway, it's become such a part of our lives that I did a bit of research about kids and imaginary friends.  I especially liked this article, The Real Reasons Kids Create Imaginary Friends.  So, I guess we're just going to sit back and enjoy this time of wild imagination!  ;)