In the past, I was quite fascinated by all things spooky, I was a horror film buff, loved a good book about true hauntings and for many years I was a goth. And during that time I learned something, kids are creepy. Especially little girls, although granted Damian from the Omen wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine but generally speaking if there’s a little girl in a horror film you know at some point she is going to be climbing up walls or projectile vomiting over priests. That’s just the way it is.
Baring this in mind I can’t deny that when I found out I was pregnant with my eldest, somewhere in the back of my mind there was the uneasy thought “what if she turns out to be creepy”.
Of course the second she was born that thought vanished entirely and I was completely wrapped up in how friggin adorable and perfect and cute she was. She was quite possibly the most beautiful baby in the world ever (ok I might have been a bit biased) but you get the idea, not a creepy bone in her chubby little body ❤️ … That is until now.
She is now coming up to four years old, she is extremely bright and extraordinarily eloquent for a three year old. This means that sometimes she comes out with things you wouldn’t expect a child her age to say. Up until now when she has said something surprisingly clever, I must admit I do tend to be incredibly proud and secretly smug, “ha, my child is a genius, what good parents we must be” but recently I have kind of been wishing she wasn’t quite so eloquent as some of the random clever things she has been saying are truly terrifying, I mean like stomach churning, we’re going to need an exorcist terrifying.
It started maybe a month or two ago, she started talking about Leo, her invisible friend, “wonderful” I thought to myself, imaginary friends are creepy as, and this is always how it starts in the films.
Now I knew she has a friend at school called Leo so I just put it down to an over active imagination, even when she would tell me that Leo had climbed into bed with me and was hiding under the duvet by my feet, I didn’t let it get to me, “It’s just harmless play” I would say to myself and then I would give myself a mental pat on the back for being so sensible and grown up about it. There was a time I would’ve freaked out about invisible little boys crawling into bed with me but not now, no, now I was a fearless mum 💪🏻 go me.
After a few weeks, Sarah showed up, to my daughter I mean, of course we could not see her, just like that cheeky little bed stealing scamp Leo. So now there were two … fabulous.
But just like she had an actual friend called Leo, she also knows a Sarah (her dance teacher) so again we just put it down to her imagination.
All was well in the world with Leo and Sarah, they would chase round the house or have imaginary water balloon fights and hardly ever do anything creepy, like perch on window sills during the night to watch us sleep … 😐
Then a week ago, we had my husband’s parents over for dinner, we were enjoying a nice family dinner, when out of nowhere my daughter starts talking about her “friends” except now there are three, now there is a Clément. She does not know a Clément, there is no one by that name at her school (i checked), he is not a character from one of her books, or from any of the cartoons she watches. I have no explanation for Clément, and she is not sure who he is either really, Leo and Sarah are brother and sister, but Clément is just naughty, thats all we know about him. I would have much preferred him to be funny, or silly but no all he is is naughty … great 👍. And then she just blurts out “and you know Leo is dead, Sarah killed him, dead like your grandad mummy” 😱 my mother in law and I just stared at each other, not saying a word but safe to say we knew we were both thinking “what the actual f!”
My lovely husband senses my absolute horror at what my beautiful angel has just announced at the dinner table, and tries to come to the rescue. “But its just pretend darling isn’t it, he’s ok really, he’s not really dead” he says “No daddy, he’s really dead, Sarah killed him” she merrily replies in between two mouthfuls of chips.
I felt a bit sick at this point and was not looking forward to sharing my bedroom with my daughter and her new mates at bedtime (yes my nearly four year old still sleeps in our room, but thats a whole other post).
So as we were getting ready for bed, she starts talking about them again this time adding that we have an angry lady called Violette living in our attic space, she is always cross and has purple lips. A fun fact about our attic space is, its not actually closed off by a wall, it just has a see through bannister to stop anything falling out so I can see everything in our attic that overlooks my bed, I now know I’m never sleeping again, awesome. So I said “sweetheart can we not talk about them now, they’re only pretend, they’re not real” what she said next and how she said it will probably haunt me forever more. Her face dropped into a scowl, she came very close to my face, squinted her eyes and said “They. Are. REAL” then started laughing and added “they’re shouting mummy, they’re always shouting”.
Pants change in aisle three. As she grew up we heard less and less about her invisible friends, but I must admit not a night goes by that I don’t look up to the attic space and imagine an angry Violette staring back at me!
Just to update the story a little, last week I heard both my kids chanting in their playroom, I went to check on them and saw they had put some toys in a circle with a woody doll in the middle. “What are you guys up to” I asked, already dreading the answer. Oh nothing mummy, we are just trying to summon the woody demon…. “Oh” I replied. “What is the woody demon?” Instantly regretted my question when my youngest said “ a few days ago I heard Woody talk by himself so now we want him to do it again” 😩 My kids are little, they shouldn’t know anything about demons, its not like me and my husband talk about anything like that, and how the heck did they know what to chant and how to put their toys in a circle! Have kids they said, it’ll be fun they said !