Mush Mush

Olivia has an imaginary friend. This friend’s name is Mush Mush. Yes. Yes it is.

Sometimes Mush Mush is a girl and sometimes, if Imaginary Jaxon is at our house, Mush Mush is a boy like Imaginary Jaxon, except when Imaginary Jaxon is a girl, then Mush Mush is a girl too.

This morning, Olivia wanted me to do her hair like Mush Mush’s hair. I had to ask her to show me, using her own hair, how Mush Mush’s hair was styled because, obviously, I couldn’t actually SEE Mush Mush’s hair since, yeah, she’s imaginary and only Olivia can describe how her hair was.

It ended up being that O wanted her the front half of her hair in a very high, very tight (or in her words, “tight, tight, tight.”) ponytail. It was cute.

Olivia approved, saying that Mush Mush was impressed with my ability to recreate the hairstyle on Olivia. I was happy that Mush Mush approved.

There have been evenings when I set a place at the table for Mush Mush, even on those evenings when I’m informed that Mush Mush is a blue kangaroo and Imaginary Jaxon is pretending to be her joey and has settled himself into Mush Mush’s pouch.

The creativity of Olivia’s mind never ceases to amaze me. I love that she gives these little insights. I feel honored that she shares all these stories and dramas with me.

Speaking of stories, each night as we settle in to read, I ask Olivia if she can tell me some of the words in the titles of the books. She read ‘dog’ and ‘cat’ in the last couple of days. She knows ‘and’ as well as ‘the.’ We’re well on our way to sight reading and, eventually, sounding out words and yes, I do believe this girl of mine is going to really read at some point. I have no doubt, actually.

After the first book last night, she asked if she could look at it when we were done. I told Tom that after only a year and a half of purposeful, nightly reading, Olivia finally wants to look at the books on her own, attempting to make sense of the letters and words on the pages. This warms her geeky mom’s heart.