Do you recall the scene in 'The Shining' when the boy says 'RED RUM RED RUM' ? Or how about the bit in 'The Exorcist' when the girl starts projectile vomiting and her head spins round ? Freak you out a bit ? Me too. So when my 3 year old Kit stood next to me yesterday and said to me in quite a distressed tone "Mummy I've got Sammys voice now - I don't want Sammys voice mummy - make it go away!" and burst into tears followed by some more "make it go away"s you can imagine the look of total shock on my face. "Quick daddy" I hollered "Kitty's gone completely barking mad!". She carried on like this for a good 5 minutes and by the end of it though sat on the sofa looking minorly disturbed - inwardly I was curled up in a ball in the corner of the room, twitching and pale with fear. WHAT THE F*CK was that about ?!
If this was the beginning of a film (and if you are reading Tom Hanks then get in touch and I'll gladly sell it you for a gadzillian pounds) then this would be the point that I realise after Googling 'child goes peculiar' that every child who has ever watched the Pingu DVD rented from the local library has turned psycho... Luckily that isn't the case however it has led me to let my thoughts wander to some other odd things she has said and done of late.
She announced a couple of months ago that she has a friend called 'Nimpom Pimpom', a little boy with red hair that plays with her and talks to her. She has woken in the night with such gems as "Quick mummy ! QUICK ! Nimpom Pimpom is stuck in the freezer - we need to get him out now!". Quite bizarre. And you know that there's something odd going on when your child pipes up in the car with "Mummy there are fairies in my head".
My other children have not had any imaginary friends so I have no previous experience to fall back on but I have convinced myself that she is just 'creatively gifted' and will blossom into an amazing artist or writer but at the same time there is still 10% of me that thinks she may well be totally insane and for now I'll be sleeping with my bedroom door locked !!!