Cody

Ben's been telling us about his friend Cody since the very first day of school. Every day when I ask him who he played with, he responds, "Cody" and goes into great detail about what they do together.  They play with the fire truck, play with the cars . . . and they play hide and seek.  He says that they play hide and seek quite often, which always makes me laugh because the preschool classroom isn't that big.

It made me feel good.  From the first day of school on, I knew that Ben had made a friend and it was comforting to me.

At Ben's field trip last week, I asked him if Cody was there and he said yes, but couldn't point him out to me.  There were 150 kids/parents there, so I didn't think anything of it. 

Then at Ben's Halloween party on Tuesday, I asked a teacher from his class which child was Cody and she replied, "We don't have a Cody in our class."

So I asked the other teacher and she gave me a puzzled look.

Um, what?

So, I went and asked Ben, "Where's Cody?"  And he just threw his hands up and shrugged.  At this point, I was a little worried that the teachers would think I was crazy.  So, I asked again, "Ben, you tell me every day that you played with Cody.  Is he in your class?"

Ben just kind of smiled and said, "He's at home still asleep."

Ben's friend Cody is 100% imaginary

When I say that Ben has talked about him, I don't mean just once or twice.  When Jack came home from school that day and asked Ben what he did at his Halloween party, he specifically asked what Cody dressed up as . . . because we all know that Cody is Ben's preschool friend.

And to my surprise, Ben replied, "He dressed up as The Flash.  Like me."

I interrupted and said, "Oh, Cody was at the party?  I thought he was still asleep.  WHere was he when you were decorating cookies?" 

"He was sitting right by me at the table," he said  All I could do was laugh.

I know that lots of kids have imaginary friends.  But really?  How many parents go two months without realizing that they're child's friend is imaginary?!

I should add that he does talk about several other children quite a bit . . . and I've now confirmed that they are all real.