"I See Dead People" (signed by Koko the gorilla)

Fiona has always been a "character". At no more than three days old, Terry videoed Baby Fiona gazing into the camera with such a mature furrow in her brow we couldn't help but ask ourselves, "what could possibly be running through her tiny head?" As she's grown older, I'd find myself nervously asking her questions, afraid of getting the look from her. That is, the look that makes her own mother wonder if a mean Mother Superior has subletted the space behind her eyes. The one that has made me awkwardly look away. While most parents are trying to distract their children out of mindless toddler jibber jabber (Neve), I'm often found trying to pull Fiona out of a distraction of her own doing, hoping to spark some mindless jibber jabber (i.e. shoot the shit).

When I've discussed my concerns with Terry, it is clear that he not only doesn't see her behavior as a concern, but is proud of her introverted nature. I say it's because he shares her introverted nature. Me? I can't imagine a person who doesn't want to discuss everything they're thinking with the rest of the world, as they're thinking it (this blog). If I had a nickel for every time my parents told me to "think before you speak"... Fiona's contemplative makeup is obviously a White family extraction. Neve, however, inherited the Bennett/Angileri's uncanny ability to absorb our environment, assess it, and discuss it, at lightening speed. This is why I'm regularly shoving my foot in my mouth.

As strange as it may sound, introspective children can be way funnier than your typical unreserved child. There is a developmental point in children when they turn the corner of grunting or screaming as a form of communication and begin behaving and talking like little humans. Most of the children I've known (prior to having my own children) have turned that corner by way of mimicking adults or older children. We call Neve our mockingbird- (heard from the backseat of the car: "are you serious?", "oh brother", "I don't think so", "I'm just kidding")- requiring Terry and I to be mindful of our language. But Fiona was different at that turning point. She put sounds and words together in a way that would create phrases and sayings unique to any language I'd ever heard. At about 2 years old, I started communicating with her in a way similar to how Koko communicated with her trainer:


"'Ona want house water time."
(translation) "I want to take a bath."

"'Ona want green circle yum-yum."
(translation) "I want frozen peas for dinner."

"Big juice, little water."
(translation) "Please don't dilute my juice, mom."

"'Ona like cold sweet yum-yum."
(translation) "I dig this icepop."

And there was a brief but worrisome period where she spoke something sounding like Croatian. She spoke with such cogency (despite the fact that no one could understand her), I was sure she'd be speaking her own Croatian dialect forever.

Approaching five years old, she is now completely coherent. In fact, I'd go so far to say that all those years she absorbed what she heard, she is now making up for it by being an interestingly poetic and artistic child, both visually and in speech. She expresses herself with the greatest strength of feeling and passion. You know when to listen to the child, for sure.

A few weeks ago, she was getting dressed. She opened her closet door and snuck behind it, as she pulled her clothes off in the cramped space.

Me: "Fiona? What are you doing?"

Fiona: "Getting dressed."

Me: "If you want privacy, Neve and I will leave your room."

Fiona: "No, I don't want my friends to see me."

Me: "What friends?"

Fiona: "The friends in my head."

I must not have been able to hide my confusion/spooked look, as she quickly explains,

Fiona: "It's ok. They're just spirits."

Que head to toe chills.

Me: "Like ghosts?"

Fiona: "No. Kids that live in my head and talk to me."

Me: "Ok. And they can't see you get dressed when-"

Fiona: "-when I get dressed in the dark."

Me: "What are their names?"

Fiona: "I don't know. I didn't ask."

Me: "And they're kids or adults? Are they nice? What do they say!"

Fiona: "Just kids... yeah, they're nice."
(I don't know why I felt better knowing that her "voices" were not those of adults, but I was...)

And it ended there. She's had an invisible friend before (Lisa McManaghan), but she stayed for a weekend and then hopped a flight back to Florida. (Seriously, we drove to the airport [around the corner from our house] to drop her off in time for her afternoon flight.) But Lisa had a name. And ate breakfast with us. And I sat on her when I didn't notice her invisible body occupying the chair. It was cute and I was pretty proud of Lisa. She wasn't a gang of adolescent spirits haunting my child's brain, making her change clothes in the dark.

Since the closet episode a few weeks ago, her "friends" have reappeared a few times, but nothing that interesting to report. They seem to keep her company in the backseat of the car when Neve falls asleep or is annoying her. They seem to appear as Ebert and Roeper when she's watching Finding Nemo or Sleeping Beauty, in need of discussing those parts that make her anxious.

For as sheltered and deprived of playgroups as I was as a child, I still never had voices or invisible friends. I just can't relate. And I'll be mighty surprised if Neve ever introduces me to an invisible friend. In fact, I'll be surprised if Neve ever even takes note of her sister's invisible friends. She's just not that kind of kid. She's more the pageant type. She's more willing to appease the stage-mom in me, what with her absence of a sixth sense and all. I can see it now: Neve walking out on stage, dolled up like Jon Benet, looking backstage at her mother who's coaching her on her choreographed moves to an Ace of Base song, while Fiona sits reading her Bertrand Russel book with her "spirit friends".

NOTE TO READERS: In case I've not made it clear enough, I'm kidding about my dream of being a stage-mom.

NOTE TO SELF: Erase this entry before either child learns to read.