Carnivorous cows and sticky mud; tell me about your child's imaginary world

[LeftField]

My little one, who will be 3 at the end of Oct, is going through a particularly intense imaginary phase. I think I might lose my mind from it, but it's pretty cool too.

It all started when, during a reading of a dragon book, he obtained an invisible orange dragon egg that an orange baby dragon hatched from. Since then, the dragon periodically shows up at our house and ds2 lovingly feeds him and watches him fly near our ceiling.

Then, I got some gorgeous invisible balloons the other day, but they apparently kept floating away or were stolen by Swiper the Fox.

Ds2 was trapped in a giant sandbox the other day, or so he told me. But the biggest issue he's having is continually getting stuck in invisible sticky mud. I mean, he will yell out and insist that we rescue him. I have to throw many invisible ropes to him and pull him out, because he can't seem to catch ds1's ropes. My older son actually made ds2 almost *cry* because he zapped him with invisible sticky mud. My little one's eyes were welling up with tears : as he pleaded that he could not move.

Then, last night, he would not come downstairs because he said there was a big black sheep on the stairs. His luck got worse when cows arrived and tried to eat him. The carnivorous cows have been stalking him since, on and off. When dinosaurs showed up, I decided to give ds2 a magic spell to keep in his imaginary pocket. Should a dinosaur threaten him, he should take the spell out, throw it and make a "schpssss" sound. That actually worked until he said that the dinosaur ate his one spell and that there were more coming. I gave him about 20 spells and that worked.

Where do they get this stuff from??? Tell me about your child's imaginary world...

[loraxc]

We have been a family of tree sloths for about a week now. We eat leaves and berries in the jungle, and we hang upside down a lot. If I refer to her as a girl or a kid, I am VERY STERNLY corrected.

If we're not tree sloths, we are probably a family of mosquitofish. As the Mama mosquitofish, I go to the store and buy boxes of mosquitoes for my children a lot. I can tell they're mosquitoes "because there is a picture of mosquitoes on the box." (Somehow this never fails to crack me up.)

I'm interested that your kids' play also uses a lot of invisible props. Except for her stuffed and plastic animals, DD hardly ever uses any physically real props. Everything is pantomimed.

[Serenity]

From my 4 yo ds

Knock, knock, knock
Who's knocking at the door?
It's Hades, he's coming in to do bad villain things
Wait here comes Superman to save the day.

etc, etc, it's like a live action film running most of the day. he plays the part of all different characters with different voices. i'm usually told what my lines are and what i'm supposed to do. sometimes we get on our "stage" but he has trouble staying in one place (a small grassy area) and often incorporates the whole back yard as the stage

[boongirl]

Interesting. My 3.5 year old has more of a concrete imaginary world. Kind of an oxymoron, I know, but I was always the same. Her imaginary play takes off from real things. Such as stuffed animals talking to each other and nesting and playing mommy and daddy and babies. Her grandma sent her some of the cars from the Movie Cars and they all have fascinating conversations and interesting activities all over the playroom, involving legos as their homes or shops or trains as their nemesises. She also likes to ask us to play with her, giving us a stuffed animal or car or train or doll, and then gets so distracted in her imaginary play with her toys that she will forget we are in the room and supposedly playing with her.

I never had any imaginary friends so maybe she won't either. She is an awful lot like me.

But, like I said, it is interesting to read about kids who do. Sounds very cute.

[LeftField]

Originally Posted by boongirl

Interesting. My 3.5 year old has more of a concrete imaginary world. Kind of an oxymoron, I know, but I was always the same. Her imaginary play takes off from real things. Such as stuffed animals talking to each other and nesting and playing mommy and daddy and babies.

This is how my oldest is. They are both very imaginative and creative, but my oldest is more of the concrete type and my youngest is more of the invisible world type. I don't remember my oldest ever needing to be pulled out of so much sticky mud!

[Daffodil]

Whenever we drive anywhere, we have to pretend we get lost and have to look for a new place to live because we can't find our way back home. Then eventually we drive back up our driveway, where we discover an "abandoned house" that we move into. We walk around and check it out, finding that there's food in the refrigerator, the lights work, etc. Often we even find a new dad there. He and Lindy discuss the tragic events that led to the loss of her old dad and his old daughter, and he tells her how happy he is to have such a wonderful new daughter.

[PeacefulSeams]

Everything that involves my son also involves airplanes. Everywhere we go, we are in an airplane. At home, all his toys are airplanes or are living in an airplane. His dinosaurs have evolved from being dinosaurs to dino-airplanes.

[teachma]

My son (6) has never really learned to use his imagination, unless it's to form bizarre, plauging (sp?), obsessive thoughts. Lately, it's, "Mommy, I am really afraid I'm going to die, and be made into a mummy, and put into a museum." I don't encourage his imagination because it all leads to drama and anxiety!

However, dd has a fabulous, cute imagination. When we go swimming, her imaginary play centers around some holes in the stone walls of the pool...an owl family inhabits them in her mind, with a different member of the owl family (mama, dad, grammy, papa, uncle...) in each hole. She has ascribed to each owl its own character trait. "Don't bother the uncle. He gets grouchy if you wake him up." "You can stick your finger into this hole. The papa owl is nice. He won't bite." Very, very adorable.

The rest of her imaginary play centers around imaginary children, her friends. She has a slew of names for them, they're always calling on the phone, their mommies always want to talk to me...I love it all!

[teachma]

Originally Posted by LeftField

My older son actually made ds2 almost *cry* because he zapped him with invisible sticky mud. My little one's eyes were welling up with tears : as he pleaded that he could not move.

This would SO totally happen at my house. Once, while driving my two children to an activity, dd asked me for a present. I passed her an imaginary box, and she said, "Oooh, thank you, Mommy!" My son cried, "That's no fair. I want one!!" He proceeded to reach over and "grab" the "present," leaving dd in absolute hysterics. I had to give her another "present" to calm her down. : Wait- I think I just realized that ds does have an imagination after all. Either that, or very little grasp on reality!

[springbabes]

My 3 yo DS has a very active imagination--in a very different way than my DDs. Your carnivorous cow story reminds me of his carnivorous deer story: The other day we were driving and we passed a very old truck. DS got excited and said, "My grandpa has a truck like that!"
Me: "Oh yeah?" (Neither of his grandpas do)
DS: "Yeah, and I was riding in the truck with him and we crashed into a wall and died!"

So that night I was relating the story to DH, saying, "Wow, do you think he was having a past-life memory?" and DS walks into the room and says:
"I just saw deer! A great big deer! And there was a coyote and the deer ate the coyote! He ate him all up!!" And DH was like, "Uh, your past life theory just lost all credibility..."

[apmommy76]

China

My son says he used to live in China. For months I researched reincarnation until finally yesterday he admitted it was all pretend!

[mamajody]

I can soooooo relate to this thread. last year my DD (then 2) lived in an imaginary place called the magical mushroom kingdom. She had a baby brother there called Medium and a dog named Salamander. They would get up to all kinds of pantomimed adventures. Sometimes I would have to set extra plates at the table for Medium during snack time. I work in a baby boutique part time, and she frequently comes along. she would shop for items to buy for Medium, and get very upset when I wouldn't actually buy them for her. She would also talk to the customers about her baby brother and how she cared for him in graphic detail. Medium disappeared after we found out I was PG with TWINS. For awhile she held out hope that medium was finally coming to live at our house, but is resigned to having her "baby" and"haby" instead.

For a little while she has been pretending to be various animals and will build herself a "cozy den" or nest. She would fill it with all her animal treasures and hole up in it for an hour. She has excellent conversations with herself over what it is like to be such a creature. Of course if the den collapses as they frequently do, she gets hysterical. I can never build them back up the right way and the game is over.

Do any of your kids talk to their hands or feet? Since she was like 13 months old DD has talked to her hands. Her right hand is called noonoo, and noonoo can be rather naughty. Sometimes noonoo will grab things away from his sister, or be mean. She also uses noonoo and his sister to entertain us at dinner time by animating her food. One tortellini puppet show was particulaly entertaining, if somewhat gruesome. Everyone ended up eaten, but they all went out screaming in agony! lol! Of course this happened in front of my BIL. He was rather disturbed. Lately she blames noonoo for various infraction, like not wanting to use a napkin, or a tissue.

Her new thing is kinda neat. She will request for my DH to become a favorite character or an animal, or "monster". She will then talk to him ONLY as that persona. He must answer her in character or she becomes very upset. Sometimes it goes on for an hour! When she finally get's tired of it she will say, "Monster/Diego/Bear, will you get Daddy for me? I want Daddy now". It cracks him up! She is also into the imaginary pitfalls game. "Reach for me mama, I'm stuck" is common in our house. Defending us from various incursions is also popular, "Mama get out your sword! The shocking eels are coming!"

I absolutely love this phase. I will be sorry to see it go.