We were at your Grandmother's one afternoon, discussing your odd sleep habits. You would go to sleep relatively fine every evening in your own bed, but around 3am you'd wake up and come running into our room completely freaked out. Only when discussing this with your Grandma did it dawn on me to ask you what you were scared of (sometimes I do forget that you are a tiny human being capable of speech).
Me: Lily, does something in your room scare you?
You: Yes.
Me: What's scary in your room?
You: Amy is scary.
Me: Amy?
You: Yeah... Amy is scary. She scares me.
Me: ...
Me: Do you mean Aunt Amy?
You: No! Amy in my room!
Ok. So here's where crazy mother fears and rationality have an argument. Rational human being says "oh, she's 2. what an active imagination!" Crazy mother fears say "OHMYGOD! WTF HAPPENED TO MY POOR LITTLE CHILD THAT SHE HAD TO MANIFEST SOME IMAGINARY PERSON???" The only bright side to having these loud, irrational, crazy mother fears is that I now understand my mother's freak outs when I would come home late and not call. "YOU COULD'VE BEEN DEAD IN A DITCH!!" I will likely scream this at you one day. I'm sure it's little solace that you will also scream it at your child.
Back to the tale... The next day while in your room, I remember to ask you about Amy. I ask if you can show me where Amy is. You point up to the wall above your bed where a small dress is hanging. It's a dress that was once mine when I was about 3 months old. I had very little to decorate your room when you were a baby, so I hung this cute, old dress up. I guess in the middle of the night, a body-less dress floating over your head is kind of creepy. Go figure.
I then had to have a conversation with the dress.
Me: Amy, did you scare Lily?
Amy: ....
Me: Amy, that was not nice. It is not nice to scare people. You need to go to time out.
Amy: .....
I then put the dress in your closet, and figured that would be that. I was wrong... Later that night at dinner...
You: Mommy, Amy is in time out.
Me: Yes. She is in time out for scaring you.
You: Yeah... but she's all done time out.
Me: She's all done?
You: Yeah. I want to go upstairs and talk to her.
Me: Um.... are you sure?
You: Yeah. Let's go get Amy!
So we head up stairs, where we get the dress out the closet and again tell her that it's not nice to scare people. You then give the dress and hug and a kiss and ask Amy to be your friend. As the dress does not actually speak, I assure you that Amy is in fact your friend now, and would do her best not to scare you any more. It's been about a month, and you still like to talk to Amy.
This is how you got your first imaginary friend, Amy.
