Halfway down the Danube

Daddy Ravioli

You know how kids have imaginary friends? It seems a perfectly normal thing. The funniest essay I ever read on this topic was by Adam Gopnik, about his New York daughter Olivia and her imaginary friend Charlie Ravioli. (We have this essay in a New Yorker collection.)

My daughter Olivia, who just turned three, has an imaginary friend whose name is Charlie Ravioli. Olivia is growing up in Manhattan, and so Charlie Ravioli has a lot of local traits: he lives in an apartment "on Madison and Lexington," he dines on grilled chicken, fruit, and water, and, having reached the age of seven and a half, he feels, or is thought, "old." But the most peculiarly local thing about Olivia's imaginary playmate is this: he is always too busy to play with her....

It's a great essay. Read it, if you can find it.

Now, my kids don't really do imaginary friends. They do imaginary monsters, oh yes. They talk with people on the phone - but those people don't have names and lives of their own. They are just people on the phone. Oh, and David likes to pretend he's a dog - or sometimes, that he's an octopus. I don't know whether that is healthy but it sure is cute.

But today, today he had me worried.

He was playing hide and seek with himself. Ah - I know what you're thinking - neglected child! Call CPS! Danger!

Not.

We had been playing hide and seek with him for about half an hour. It's sort of boring because he always hides in the same place (a large wooden box in the dining room), and he always crows, "Mommy, I'm here!" After a while, I chose dinner preparation over play time and left him there.

When I came back, I saw him hugging himself and saying, "I love you, David. -- I love you too, Daddy."

"Are you talking with Daddy?" I said, curiously.

He held out his palm and said, "Here's Daddy. Here on hand. Always with David."

It stung. I'm still not sure whether to cry or to laugh. And then - can you just imagine all those shrink bills?

Posted by claudia at February 4, 2006 05:58 PM