Imagine This...

Tonight Kerry and I got to talking about Sadie's imagination and decided her stories are well worth sharing. So here it goes:

Sadie, Gracey and their cousin Justis

Sadie, who is now 9, began talking, walking and just generally commanding attention at an extremely young age. So none of us should have been surprised when she started telling tall tales. (Those still exist...just not to the extent of her early ones.)

In preschool, she came home telling us all about  Mrs. Haney's classroom rabbit. I got so excited because I love bunnies! I told Sadie that I wanted to see it.  But Sadie explained that they let the bunny go in the forest. And it was attacked by a lion, then eaten by a snake. The only problem was that there ARE no woods by the school she attended. And, frankly, there was no rabbit either.  We were 99% sure of both of those facts.  But she was very convincing. She kept on and on about that rabbit till we finally asked Mrs. Haney if there ever was a rabbit - only to discover we were right to start with.

Then there was the time she got on the phone with her PaPa (my daddy) and told him all about her fish dying. She went on and on and on about the fish...had him feeling sorry for her, etc.  Again - there were no fish. And when he tried to revisit to conversation about her fish - just moments after her story - she announced, "PaPa, we don't have any fish!" As if HE was the ridiculous one!

Somehow animals always made their way into her stories back then. Even to the point of her having a boyfriend:  a rabbit boyfriend named Michael. Alas, he also met an ill fate. He was run over by a train.

Wait a minute. What's with all the death??? I wonder if she's the next Stephen King! YIKES!

She also had a cross-eyed skydancing cousin. (Let's not get too into this one. I'm just telling you that we didn't know anyone cross-eyed. And what the heck is a skydancer anyway??) That cousin died, btw. Guess that wasn't a good career choice.

Ok. Anyway...our absolute favorite was her imaginary grandma. Not just a story - her grandma became a huge part of our lives for almost a year. The strangest thing about that to me was that she already HAS 3 sets of grandparents. I can't imagine what made her think she needed ANOTHER grandmother.  Sadie had EVERYONE convinced that this grandma was real.

"My grandma has a swimming pool at her house." or "My grandma has a spider that lives in her sink." And her grandma ALWAYS let Sadie do things that we wouldn't let her do at home.

After quite a long time, her grandma was really getting on my nerves! That darn grandma had a comeback for everything! I decided to challenge that grandma. At dinner one night, I announced that I was going to call her. Sadie quickly explained that we couldn't because we didnt know her number, etc.  I got up and got the phone. I even started to dial while Sadie stared me down. Then, she suddenly explained that her grandma couldn't be reached because she'd moved away. 

I bet you want to know where and why, right? Well.......her grandma moved to Canyon (which is about 18 miles away) to attend college. And guess what she was studying to be?  A TOOTHFAIRY!  You'd think Sadie would be excited about this new adventure with her grandma. Instead, she burst into tears and told us how much she was going to miss her grandma. 

We never heard about that grandma again after that. But we sure do talk about her. Even some of our friends stop to ask about that grandma sometimes.

If she becomes a famous novelist someday, you now can say you saw it coming!