Meet Tuke (rhymes with Luke)
Tick
And LaLa
Her left hand in that certain position is Tuke, her right hand in that certain position is Teck, and her right hand in the slightly different position is LaLa. Tuke and Teck are her primary friends. LaLa comes quite a bit too though. Occasionally her hands turn into other "friends". I've seen a baby and a dog. I asked her when I took these pictures if there were any others and she made me this:
She said it was a doctor.
Much of her days, especially after getting home from school are spent talking to these friends. Usually her conversations with them involve a recent event in her life or her current obsession. Here is a short video of her talking to them. See how she holds them up to her face to talk to them? It's hard to hear her but she is talking to them about a rescue...as in firefighter....see what I mean?!
She also makes strange noises when she does it...kind of clicking noises and I'm not sure what those are.
We've often wondered if she had these friends in the orphanage. It would make perfect sense that this is where they would develop as a way to entertain herself. In July we were celebrating her gotcha day and we were looking at pictures. Look at what we noticed:
Do you see Tuke?
In case you were wondering Tuke and Tick are not allowed in school. She can tend to get obsessed (shocking I know) and block other things out so there are certain places that they are not allowed. She is very good about putting them away when she is told to.
We have had some concern about them. This is how she plays. She doesn't play with toys and she doesn't interact with other kids...she just talks to her hands. We worry that this is hurting her development so for Christmas this year she is getting some Little People sets (a fire truck with fire fighters and a house with a family). We are going to try to encourage her to do her imaginative play with them more and see if we can't draw her into something a little more developmentally appropriate.
I'd love to know if any of you have dealt with imaginary friends and how they manifested themselves in your house.
4 comments:
Oh yes.. imaginary friend is often around... He doesn't have a name and Aaron can't do sign language with him but from day one we realized that Aaron had a special friend who kept him company. He would often turn to the wall, rock his body and start talking in words and noises... most often noises... I'm grateful for that friend because he kept my boy sane through the nightmare of his life. We often wonder if it isn't an angel unaware. He still talks to him.... but not too often... usually when he is super happy and just needs to share... then he will turn his body and do his funny little rocking and make his noises and we know we are in the presence of another.
ben and sophie played "piechick"(thats what they called it, playing piechick) for a long time where their fingers were people and they would play pretend together. but its waned and they dont very much anymore.
That's interesting how she plays. I'm sure you know that it's not uncommon at all for children who have been raised in an institutional setting; she learned how to play using her own hands, as there were likely times when she did not have access to toys.
I know many internationally adopted children have the issue you mentioned -- inability (or perhaps, not knowing how) to play with actual toys and with other children.
I wonder if it's as age-inappropriate as it seems at first blush? I'm just thinking that certainly, she has delays as a result of her time in the orphanage. And then there are her brain abnormalities, which have caused cognitive delay as well.
But I totally agree that it's a wonderful ideal to get her started on some toys that are apt to interest her and to promote more age-appropriate play, but at the same time, I wouldn't worry too too much as it may be fairly normal for where she's at cognitively (which is clearly very different from where she's at chronologically.)
We haven't had too many imaginary friends. My daughter did have an imaginary horse named "Dunn." (Inconveniently, he lives in the shed! So we need to put him to bed nightly with a visit to the shed, LOL!)
Keep us updated! I'm curious to hear how she makes out with her new firefighter toys!
Oh WOW! Patrick has "finger" friends. His speech is developed enough for us to understand him, but his fingers talk to and play with each other ALL. THE. TIME! The talk and wrestle and play more than ANY toy! He can be playing with toys and using real words and then "space out" and with the noises he is making I know he is playing with his "finger friends" instead of his actual toys. Sometimes, he even has his "finger friends" interact with real toys. The finger friends make noises and the real toys will use real words. It is BIZARRE! I never thought about this being an orphanage thing....I thought he was just imaginative until I read this, but now you have me thinking!
Lyndi
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