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Did you have an imaginary friend, when you were a kid? I didn’t, and – to my knowledge – none of my nine siblings did, either. I’ve always found the concept of imaginary friends fascinating – and now Johnny (five years old) and Lily (three years old) have brought a shared imaginary friend into our home!
Meet KIEZZ – pronounced Connie. KIEZZ/Connie is a boy. You have to write his name all uppercase, because Johnny isn’t too happy with how his lowercase letters look at the moment, and he find them more difficult to read. For whatever reason, Johnny never writes or draws anything about KIEZZ/Connie – even though he writes and draws about pretty much everything else. He talks about KIEZZ/Connie all the time. KIEZZ spends a LOT of time in our house. Johnny invents most of KIEZZ/Connie’s antics, but Lily elaborates on them. She also chronicles them (see above), primarily using the three letters of her own name. She isn’t too bothered by whether or not the letters look like what they say – and, in fact, she very rarely tells me what it is supposed to say. Instead, her pages of markings are simply, “The Story of Connie”.
Johnny and Lily use KIEZZ/Connie to test out my reactions to various ideas, and as a way of finding out whether behavior is funny or inappropriate. They also enjoy the fact that KIEZZ/Connie is their friend, and that they can make him say or do whatever he wants (within reason – if KIEZZ/Connie starts acting rude, he has to go home for a while).
Do your kids have imaginary friends?
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this is adorable, yes our little girls have many imaginary fiends and plenty of imaginative play. I LOVE it!!!!
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 15th, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Imaginary friends are a lot of fun!
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What a fascinating element in their play! My kids do a lot of pretending, and sometimes they will pretend someone is there (usually to fulfil a role in the story that none of them wants to take on), but there hasn’t been anyone in particular recurring, nor have they had me interact with any pretend entity.
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 15th, 2013 at 3:02 pm
I think it’s fascinating how differently different kids play.
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My kids had ghost friends…… They started coming over right about the time Sam died, and stuck around for several years. Their ghost friends were mostly versions of their real friends that were available to come over whenever they wanted. In particular Princess had a whole army of them.
I haven’t heard about them quite so much lately.
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 15th, 2013 at 3:00 pm
That’s interesting, that they showed up around when Sam died. Come to think of it, my sister and I had ghost friends for a while – we claimed we had brought home a couple of the ghosts from the haunted house ride at Disneyland.
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My kids don’t, but Lila has names for all her dolls and stuffed animals, they are all very real to her.
The pretzels you asked about are from Allrecipes.com, one of my go to sites for recipes. They are titled ‘Mall Pretzels’ and I encourage you to read through the comments at the bottom, there’s a lot of good advice to be found :)
Hop you all have a wonderful weekend!
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 15th, 2013 at 2:58 pm
My dolls and stuffed animals were very real to me. Not my kids – maybe that’s why they have imaginary friends?
Thanks for the recipe info – I’ll check it out!
Hope you have a wonderful weekend, also!
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We do not have any imaginary friends yet, but maybe soon. I love that they use the friend to test boundaries — and that you send the friend home! Too cute.
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Oh yes, imaginary friends show up from time to time! For a while my daughter had 2 and even 3 and when she did something she would try blaming on them! That was stopped. Now we just have an imaginary… husband. lol
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My kids have not had imaginary friends..and I am not sure why!? I think it is awesome! They do play by themselves a ton…and for hours…so maybe they do have friends..and I just don’t know about it!?
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 17th, 2013 at 9:00 pm
Self-entertaining kids are the best!
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So cute. Reagan is the only one so far that has had imaginary friends – she had a girl and boy named Keiku and Andrew, but they seemed to go away sometime during her Kindergarten year.
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 17th, 2013 at 8:58 pm
I’ll be a little sad when Johnny and Lily outgrow KIEZZ.
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I think KIEZZ/Connie is adorable as are your kids!! I can’t remember my kids having imaginary friends. If they did, that friendship was very short. It was so fun to read the story and hear about how they can actually share her!!!
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 17th, 2013 at 8:56 pm
They have a lot of fun with KIEZZ/Connie :)
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Nine siblings? You had NINE siblings? Wow! I’m still stuck on that part of this post!! Nine!!!
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 17th, 2013 at 8:55 pm
Yep! I’m the fourth of ten :)
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Princesse Ecossaise Reply:
March 18th, 2013 at 5:14 am
Wow!! That’s rare, I know a lot of families with 6 kids here in France but 10, that’s impressive! Anyway the part about the imaginary friend is so cute! I didn’t have an imaginary friend but like someone else said, all my toys were so real to me!
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that’s such fun. i love the difference between the spelled and pronounced names. Bear has had an imaginary friend “Jetta” for the past year. she comes and goes… sometimes makes a mess, lol. i had many as a kid, so i’m told.
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 19th, 2013 at 10:43 am
I think imaginary friends are so fun!
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My kids haven’t had imaginary friends. I remember having one when I was a kid. That’s cute that Johnny and Lily have the same one.
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I love the story of Connie! How sweet! My oldest has an imaginary friend who she speaks her own made up language with and both of my girls have imaginary brothers who are very naughty and are to blame for much of the mischief in our home.
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 19th, 2013 at 10:35 am
I love that your girls have imaginary brothers!
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So fascinating that they used their friend to test your reaction to things. Clever move.
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How fascinating! No, Anna doesn’t have imaginary friends, but she treats her favorite blankie like he is a real person and often involves him (it’s a boy!) in her pretend games.
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 28th, 2013 at 1:16 pm
One of Emma’s friends has a blankie like that!
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Hi I love this blog post, I work as a Nanny and I have seen a few variations of imaginary friends but never have I heard of 2 children sharing one …it’s very sweet.
As a child I had an imaginary friend in honesty my memory of her is a girl that came to my house to play until I was about 4. I was very sure that she was real. My mum has told me that I would say she is at the door and ask her to let her in, I often would ask where is Julie’s dinner mum. When my mum “rudely” let our friend go hungry. I remember playing games with her and walking together around my garden. One day my mum took my brother and I to a play park Julie came along… at home time I couldn’t find Julie and my mum has told me I was happy to believe that her mum took her home.
The strangest imaginary friend that I know belonged to a 3 year old boy he called his imaginary friend Derick and Derick was a man and often went on holiday. The young boy would find small items around the house and claim Derick brought them back from holiday for him. One day Derick took a ferry to Australia and wouldn’t come back.
It is astonishing the power of a young child’s imagination!
Thanks for sharing x
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MaryAnne Reply:
March 29th, 2013 at 5:28 pm
That is so fascinating that you remember your imaginary friend as a real live girl! Children’s imaginations are truly incredible!
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