Last Sunday, I had Child Room duties at Church. This particular day, it was just me and Juss.
After our own puppet show, we got into a conversation about his imaginary brothers. (Recently, he told me that there are 16 of them.) I was curious whether I was the mother of these invisible brothers, so I asked Juss where they came from.
Juss began telling me where some of them ‘popped out of” (the way he ‘popped out of’ Mommy’s tummy.)
Arko, the eldest, popped out of the ark. (He’s called Arko because he was born on the Ark — some of you may recall Arko from Arko’s Ten Commandments.)
One popped out of a tree. One popped out of a shark. He can bite through metal! Another popped out of something I can’t remember.
Then came the shy one. (Juss acted out each brother.) When I asked where he was from, Juss said that the shy one popped out of tears. He said: “The mommy could not have a bady. On the day the baby would have been born, she cried and my brother popped out of her tears.”
Where did that come from? Where do they get these things?
Sounds like something the child of two writers would say to me :p
Sounds like something the child of two writers would say to me :p
It is amazing what an observant child can see. It also shows a son who loves his mother.
It is amazing what an observant child can see. It also shows a son who loves his mother.
I remember, as a child of about 3, being convinced that Mowgli from The Jungle Book was coming to visit me. It involved a Cadbury egg, somehow. I’ve forgotten the details now…I also remember a close friendship with streetlamps around the same time period. Hmmmm. Wish I could remember my thought process at the time.
There was also the time(age 5, I think)when I saw shafts of sunlight streaming through a break in the clouds (a fairly rare sight where I grew up, not many overcast days) and turned to my mom and said, “Mommy, look! God is talking to someone over there!” As I got older, I grew mortified by this memory; now I think perhaps that child wasn’t so wrong after all.
I remember, as a child of about 3, being convinced that Mowgli from The Jungle Book was coming to visit me. It involved a Cadbury egg, somehow. I’ve forgotten the details now…I also remember a close friendship with streetlamps around the same time period. Hmmmm. Wish I could remember my thought process at the time.
There was also the time(age 5, I think)when I saw shafts of sunlight streaming through a break in the clouds (a fairly rare sight where I grew up, not many overcast days) and turned to my mom and said, “Mommy, look! God is talking to someone over there!” As I got older, I grew mortified by this memory; now I think perhaps that child wasn’t so wrong after all.
Our eldest began telling her father and I about ‘her son’, Savvy, when she was about 3. Although he was her son, she was NOT his mother, you see. His mother left her to babysit one day, and never came back and that’s how he became her son. Somewhere at a little later date, Savvy got a sister who was named “Mariposa” (I think a character in a picture book had that name) We’d hear a lot about Savvy and Mariposa for a few years. And then little by little, the real siblings (now coming every 18 months to 2 years) began to take up more of her life than the imaginary ones and we never heard any more stories about them. She doesn’t really remember much about them, sadly, except for the few things I remember.
It is amazing what can come out of their imaginations! It got even more interesting with some of the others down the line, but I never got more imaginary grandchildren. – Ave
Our eldest began telling her father and I about ‘her son’, Savvy, when she was about 3. Although he was her son, she was NOT his mother, you see. His mother left her to babysit one day, and never came back and that’s how he became her son. Somewhere at a little later date, Savvy got a sister who was named “Mariposa” (I think a character in a picture book had that name) We’d hear a lot about Savvy and Mariposa for a few years. And then little by little, the real siblings (now coming every 18 months to 2 years) began to take up more of her life than the imaginary ones and we never heard any more stories about them. She doesn’t really remember much about them, sadly, except for the few things I remember.
It is amazing what can come out of their imaginations! It got even more interesting with some of the others down the line, but I never got more imaginary grandchildren. – Ave
I came across a dissertation the other day that examined the religious and mythic beliefs of very young children. It was amazing how each child came up with their own unique and wildly imaginative system of beliefs, their own mythology and cosmology. Even if their parents taught them a particular religion, they would supplement it with their own gods and magic people and supernatural events and rituals.
I came across a dissertation the other day that examined the religious and mythic beliefs of very young children. It was amazing how each child came up with their own unique and wildly imaginative system of beliefs, their own mythology and cosmology. Even if their parents taught them a particular religion, they would supplement it with their own gods and magic people and supernatural events and rituals.