Meet Sally

I would love to show you a picture here of Sally, but as much as she's a part of our life, I don't have one single picture of her.  You see, Sally is imaginary.  All of the kids have had an imaginary friend at one time or another, but only for an afternoon here and there.  Katie Anne, on the other hand, has had Sally for more than a month.  Sally is amazing.  She is almost 6 and has been through so much in her life.  One day when we were driving by the cemetery, Jane commented that driving by made her feel sad for her Grandma who died in February.  Katie Anne was sad, too, because Sally had died when the monsters came and poked her.  Luckily, we found out later that Sally was alive and well, and yesterday when we were in the mountains near Honeyville, she told us that Sally just lived up that road a little farther.  Another time we heard that Sally had only one arm, that the other one had been smashed.  We were all sad for Sally.  Luckily, Sally can still be an example to Katie Anne on how to hold her crayon.

Let me explain.  Katie Anne has not been holding her crayon right and I know she's only 3 but bad habits die hard so I have been trying to help her get it right.  One day when we were at library class she said that Sally held her crayon like she did  and that it was just fine.  I replied that Sally had learned how to do it the right way, and that Sally's mother had called to tell me how happy she was that Sally could hold her crayon right.  Think of it as playing along, and not an outright lie.  Anyway, Katie Anne just stared at me for a minute, trying to arrange things in her brain, switched her fingers around to holding the crayon how I taught her, and that was that.

Sally comes up a lot.  If anyone has anything to say about anyone, Katie Anne pipes in with a similar experience for Sally. Sally was sick last week, the same day Jack came down with an ear infection.Then, the other day we were at Walmart letting Jane pick out a birthday present for a party she had coming up.  Once she had the doll in hand, Katie Anne suddenly remembered that it was Sally's birthday.  She would NOT let up and Sally had to have a present.  It was getting pretty out of control until I finally told her that when we got home she could make Sally a card and pick out one of her own toys to give her.  Oh my.

Sally is not alone.  Sometimes MariOn (pronounced Merry On) comes to play and most recently Theehay Theehor came to play.  I am surprised sometimes at how real Sally seems to Katie Anne.  I haven't done any research on imaginary friends, but to me it seems that it's just her way of making sense of the world around her, and at the least it is very cute.  So, for now, Sally is a welcome guest in our home!

And just for fun...