Carla

A few weeks ago Fiona started introducing herself to us as "Carla." She's done things like this before, but always in a generic way -- she was a princess, or a pirate, or a mommy. Occasionally she might be one of her relatives, but this Carla thing didn't make any sense. Unless her Aunt Kathy has been sharing her extensive DVD collection during babysitting, I don't even know where she's heard the name Carla.

But Carla stayed around, becoming the name of choice for various dolls, stuffed animals, bath toys, et cetera. And this evening, I finally understood what's been going on:

My daughter has an imaginary friend.

When we got home this evening, I headed to the kitchen to throw dinner together. Fiona came running in carrying Chutes and Ladders asking if we could play (she just got the game when we were clearing out some leftover gifts we didn't give her last winter; she doesn't really understand the game, but she likes climbing up the ladders). I told her that I couldn't play right then, but if she wanted to play with the spinner and pieces by herself she could do that.

The next thing I knew, Fiona was sitting in the hall "playing" the game with (an unseen) Carla. They even got into a brief argument where Carla got frustrated over... something to do with her hair, I think; it's sometimes hard to keep track of arguments with imaginary friends.

You know, when I get into arguments with unseen people a man in a white coat adjusts my medication...

Thanks for the Clarification

Over dinner, we ask Fiona about who she played with at day care during the day, and what games they played.

Fiona: We played princesses.
Mommy: Oh, fun.
Fiona: And wonder pets.
Daddy: Oh yeah?
Fiona: And robot.
Daddy: You played robots?

Fiona holds her juice cup between her hands and starts moving it between her hands rapidly while speaking in a rapid monotone:

Fiona: I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot I'm a robot...

Mommy: Well, that sounds like fun.

Fiona: ("normal" again) Yeah. But I'm just a pretend robot.

Phew.

My Memory Was That Good Once, I Think... I Can't Remember...

Sunday as we walked to the grocery store Fiona carried her red stuffed dog Rojo with her. A tiny piece of red fuzz fell off Rojo onto the sidewalk. Fiona scooped it up with a gasp and I offered to put it in the trash. Fiona would have none of it. She announced she was going to plant the fuzz in the garden, and promptly placed it through the fence posts on the house we'd stopped in front and let it fall into the dirt.

Two days later as we walked home, we neared the same house we'd been in front of on Sunday. Fiona has been busy checking out all the flowers in the gardens on her walk home, and as we passed this house she asked where the Rojo fuzz was. Having completely forgotten about our expedition to the grocery store, and figuring toddler diction isn't the sharpest, I figured she was looking for a red (rojo) flower (sounded like fuzz). I told her there weren't any red flowers, but if she looked over there she could see a purple one.

Fiona shook her head and looked at the dirt, and then noticed a small piece of red fuzz, which she promptly pulled out of the dirt and displayed to me.

And then she declared that the fuzz had moved.

I have to take that on faith (it took me a minute to even remember that she'd had Rojo with her the other day), but either way that's a pretty fierce memory for a three year-old, I think.

Well, It's Obvious When You Point It Out

We went to the doctor recently to discuss a plan for dealing with Fiona's allergies and colds. Each time she gets sick (or allergic) the cold starts in her nose, but quickly migrates to her throat, and she winds up coughing the night away (and nobody gets any sleep).

When she was 18 months old the doctors thought she might have asthma, so they put us on a program involving using inhalers when she developed symptoms. But as she's gotten older it's pretty clear that she's not asthmatic, since her symptoms always start in her sinuses and never migrate to her chest, and we're increasingly loathe to use the steroids in her inhalers if they might not be necessary.

So we got a new plan with the doctor involving nasal spray and bacitracin and various details you don't need. But what struck me was an offhand comment the doctor made as we discussed the plan, when he looked across his desk at Fiona sitting in my lap, cuddling up as she often does with her thumb in her mouth.

"Of course," he said, "kids like this get sick easily because of their habits. They touch something and then the thumb goes straight in the mouth."

And Andrea and I sat their dumbfounded; with several graduate degrees between us we'd never paused to consider that maybe, just maybe, Fiona's thumbsucking might lead to added exposure to germs.

Maybe I do need a basic parenting class.