Imaginary Friends

So I (Randy) haven't read every blog left on this site, so I am not sure how often, if ever, Mikayla's imaginary friend "Chilanga" has been mentioned. Suffice it to say that, well, she has an imaginary friend and, yep, you guessed it, her name is Chilanga. We aren't sure where the name originated, but Chilanga has been a guest in our house for awhile now.

Yesterday Mikayla came to me holding her shoulder and said in a whiny voice, "Daddy, Chilanga just hit me." I asked her to nicely tell Chilanga that we shouldn't hit and that we should always play nice. After about 3 seconds, "Dad, she hit me again. Will you tell her to stop?" So, never knowing what to do, I looked about a foot to the side of Mikayla and said, "Chilanga, you need to stop hitting. Please try and be nice to Mikayla." Almost before I finished my sentence, Mikayla said, "Well Dad, she did it again." This is not an uncommon scenario, and it has been known to go on for a long time, so in a moment of frustration I said, "Mikayla, you tell Chilanga that if she can't be nice then she will have to leave our house and not come back." Yep. I threatened to kick an imaginary little girl out of our home. A real tough guy.

Not surprising, Chilanga began to behave and Mikayla walked off. She came back about 2 minutes later and said, "Daddy, my crap is kinda funny, but it hurt me a little." I was speechless, but full of laughter. Mikayla asked me not to laugh at her. I said, "Mikayla, I must have misunderstood you. What did you say?" Her response, "My crap just hurt me a little bit, but its kinda funny too." I again lost it. "Mikayla, I don't think I understand." I watched her as she mumbled something about her new friend crawling around on the ground and realized that she was talking about her new imaginary friend: a crab. Oh, how a minor mispronunciation can make an entire day so much happier.