Active Imagination

Yesterday afternoon, while the freezing cold wind howled outside and rattled our windows, the girls sat at the kitchen table drawing pictures. Beth proudly held up one of her creations, announcing "Here's a picture of me and Daddy. We're playing ball".

Amy looked carefully at Beth's artwork. "Beth, can I play ball with you and Daddy, too? Can you draw me in?"

Beth rolled her eyes. "Aaaammmyyy", she whined, "It's just a picture of me and Daddy!"

Amy begged. "Please, Beth? I want to play too".

Beth groaned, and then proceeded to turn the picture over. On the backside, she drew a stick figure, and then held it up for Amy to see. "There you are, Amy. That's you".

Amy took one look and started to sob. "What am I doing on the back?", she cried. "I want to play ball with you guys. Don't make me play by myself! And...what...what...I don't have any hair!!! You made me BALD! DRAW SOME HAIR RIGHT NOW!"

Beth drew some yellow curls onto the stick figure.

Amy came running to me, with tears pouring down her face. "Bethie won't let me play ball with her and Daddy. She's leaving me out of everything. She made me have an ugly face and not much hair, and I have to play by myself on the back of the page, with no grass or trees or anything".

My attempts to bring Amy back to reality were futile. In her mind, she truly was being left out of a ball game, forced to play all alone somewhere with no trees or even a ball to play with. I finally convinced Beth to draw Amy into the initial picture, and the crisis was resolved.

I know the experts say that a good imagination is important. So I suppose I should be grateful that Amy's imagination is apparently working very, very well.