Kids can be so creepy

When my 8yr old was between 3-5 he had an imaginary friend that he called "Shadow Friend".
They played outside together, built Lego towers, watched TV, took naps. Shadow Friend was a common guest at our dinner table. It was adorable.
I know it's perfectly normal for kids to have imaginary friends. I have 4 kids, the oldest is a teenager, so this isn't my first time at the rodeo, and I've seen a lot of weird kid stuff in my day.

So, when my 3 yr old, Miss L, started talking about a friend none of us could see, I thought it was cute.
Just like her big brother, Miss L started doing everything with her imaginary friend.
They play tea party, they dress-up, she even argues with her and sometimes refuses to play with her, but most mornings they watch "The Cat in the Hat" together, and again, I though it was adorable.

That is, I did think it was adorable, until I asked Miss L what her new imaginary friend's name is, then........
It got weird.

Samara. My daughter's imaginary friend's name is Samara. 

Leave it to my kid to come up with the creepiest name for her invisible friend. 

Guess what the only genre of movies Mommy doesn't watch is? Horror. 

And guess which kind she hates the most? The kind with the creepy kids.

And what is the name of the creepiest little girl in all of Horror?

You got it. Samara from "The Ring".

Now I wish she'd just play with her brother.

File under: Things I do when left to my own devices

my favorite headstone

Maybe by now you've gotten the drift that I am not your average girl.  I do things for fun that might make other girls cringe.

Camping with no running water, for example.
Doing the dishes by hand.
Or taking photos of scary insects and looking up strange diseases that plagued the people of the 1800's.
You know, fun stuff.


So, it really shouldn't surprise you that when I was gifted a few hours to spend alone (see: no children) I chose not to spend my time getting my hair done or shopping, but to spend it wandering around the Old City Cemetery.
In the evening. Alone. For over an hour.

You know what's nice about the cemetery? (Aside from the  historical significance, beautifully crafted monuments and slightly creepy feeling of voyeurism.....) 
It is QUIET. Obviously.  The Old City Cemetery has tons of benches & even some randomly placed picnic tables and if I'd have known that ahead of time I would have packed some food, brought a book and spent more than an hour there.  In fact, I envision future cemetery picnic-style date nights with the husband.


On a strangeness scale of 1-10, I figure this ups my score to somewhere around 57 but you know what?
I don't care.
We can't all be mall-rats.