imaginary friends

my name is gilbert im 9 years old i have an imaginary friend named looloo its a strange type of bird and the only wordd she knows is loo loo right looloo looloo says hi and i make alots more if i can

gilbert nogaski

When my five year old neice was going through the gibberish stage in her language development, a certain phrase, "Ponzi Wonzie," kept recurring. It didn't take long for her to develop the words that she needed to communicate, but Ponzi remained.

By the time she was two she was drawing pictures of Ponzi on the wall; a circle with a face inside it and lines radiating from it. "Ponzi is a boy, but he's a spider today."

After a while we didn't hear from Ponzi any more. Then one day last year we saw a commercial for a new cartoon on the Cartoon Network called "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends." After seeing that, Marie announced that that is where Ponzi was staying.

Since then Ponzi has been back in our lives full force. Usually he is a boy, but sometimes he is a grown up or even a spider. He has a whole changing ensemble of family and friends, and even his back story changes frequently. (She told me recently that Ponzi was Jewish and that he lived in Africa.) But Ponzi is consistently with us.

Sometimes Ponzi does things that Marie wishes she could do, like drive a car, and sometimes he does things that she does, like take swim lessons. He also does things that get Marie into trouble like making messes.

Occasionally the wind will blow open the front door and she will run to it shouting, "Ponzi! Shut the door when you come in! You'll let the dogs out!" Or if the dogs bark at nothing, she tells Ponzi to quit teasing them.

To me the most fascinating thing about Ponzi is that Marie sometimes uses him as an ice breaker. Whenever she meets some one new, particularly new adults (teachers, etc.) she opens with a Ponzi story. And when they ask who Ponzi is, she says, "Well, he's my imaginary friend."

Now when I run into people who have met Marie and Ponzi, they ask about both of them. In fact, some teenagers who work with my mother are even blaming Ponzi when they get into trouble now.

Aunt Marie

in preschool and kindergarden i used to hav 2 imaginary friends. one was snoopy.enough said. the other was Uey a 10 year old boy. i was a tomboy and convinced that he forced me to wear dresses.

years later at an acting day camp in 2nd grade an older man came and i was convinced he was my Uncle Uey

yes I was a disturbed child.

luv ya Uey!!!

I used to have an imaginary friend named Tall Zebra. I would always say that if someone got me mad that TZ would step on them. And I vaguely remember a male imaginary friend who looked about 20....He was TZ's caretaker and his other bestfriend.

IBELIEVEINTZ

From age 6-12 I had an imaginary friend who when I was in the car would run along side it, or on the sidewalk if one was available... He would jump over fire hydrants, lamp posts, other cars, ect. I never gave him a name and never saw him any other time then when I was in the backseat (passanger side) of the car.

Livy

My imaginary friend's name was Nanda. He was a mouse. He lived in these tiny glass houses my mother collects. I don't remember his mother and sister's names, I know they were complicated, but I know his dad was Michael Johnson.

Sam

I have had a whole lot of imaginary friends, however, they keep disappearing. I just realized for every house I lived in (my family has moved a lot) I had a seperate imaginary friend. Right before I find out we move, my imaginary friend kind of just 'fades away'. I have had many different friends for the house we are in now, none of which have kept alive.

Oobi Doobi

i used to have an imaginary friend who was a game show host. i claimed that we became friends because i rescued him from a pricker-bush that he was caught in behind my house. also involved in this was another sort-of imaginary "friend" named christina, who wasn't so much a friend as someone to compete with in various events (usually involving who could do things faster, and which i always won), which the game show host would arrange and narrate as if we were on tv.

katie

i used to think (when i was 4 - 7 ) that there were these little green men in my brain and my face was a computer screen and i hated the green men so much so some days i would say ( in my mind ) go away and make it be little barbie people in my head insted so there was a big leaving party and wen the barbie's came they werent real they were just big cardbourd cutouts of them it used 2 realy up set mewhen the green men would come back but im over it now and it just makes me laugh !

jessica bruno

When I was four my brother convinced me that all of the little tiny dots of light were people. So I would sit there day after day and stare very closely at the screen so that i could give each of them names and families. I had a whole world for them in the screen. And would sit and talk very closely to each of them every day. This beleif continued untill i was ten. And my dad said if i didnt stop talking to them he'd break the screen and kill them all.

summer

When I was in 6th grade, I had already had a multitude of imaginary friends. For some reason, my friends Katie, Lynne and I decided to have imaginary children. Mine was a little boy named Harvey (I'd just seen the play about the invisible bunny) and we carried them around everywhere, just like we would real children. I'm sure our teacher thought it was mighty strange that the three of us walked around with our hips stuck out like we were carrying something when there wasn't really anything there.

Carly

OK, I've seen others who gave personalities to numbers. I gave personalities to my crayons, and by extension, colors in general. Purple (and if available, pink) were the lovely maidens. Red and blue were the cute guys fighting over purple. Green was a friend of the "boys." Yellow was the average-looking friend of the "girls." When I got bored in class, I'd sit and create whole stories in my head, moving the crayons around my desk accordingly.

And I was in the gifted program!

Maria

When I was about 6, I was absolutely terrified of The Things That Go Bump In the Night, which were (in my mind) an entire race of monsters and boogiemen and ghosts and demons and the like. So I deliberately made up an imaginary friend named Midoon (MIDnight-nOON) who would protect me from the dark monsters. He was the actual, real Prince of the Night, but the Things had stolen it from him and he had to defeat them all to get it back.

Drew

When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I believed that there was a family of tiny people living under the chest of drawers. It was a family: the father, Hunkle Bunkle; the mother, Bake-a-cake; and the children, the Oochie-Coochies. Yes, those were the names I made up for them. I remember showing my sister pieces of fuzz under the chest of drawers, and telling her which member of the family each one was. She believed me, but that's OK because she was only 5 or six.

E-man

When I was about 2 or 3 me and my sister both had imaginary friends my friend was named John-boy and hers was named Dandy-girl and my sister and I used to argue about which of our friends was cooler or better at sports or smarter etc. And I remember actually getting into a fist fight over our friends and to this day she still has a scar on her leg from me trying to cut her leg off with a plastic-play knife.

Anon

I had imaginary friends when I was about 3 years old....they were twins named Ging & Gong....I talked to them and imagined that the replied....Mommy actually set places at the dinner table for them!

It must be hereditary....my son had an imaginary friend when he was about the same age....a truckdriver named Charlie who lived in the corner of our living room....he has startled guests many times by yelling, "be careful! don't step on Charlie!" Charlie also ate meals with us.

alcy

My brother had an imaginary friend named Rogney until he was about 10. When he desided to not play with Rogney anymore, we had a going away party (my brother, sister, and I) and at the end of the party we opened the closet door and waved goodbye to Rogney, as the closet was the entrance to "Imaginaryland", where Rogney lived.

Lydia

I had an imaginary friend called Columbia who was a very important and busy woman. She would only visit occasionally. When NASA launched Columbia I was amazed that she was that famous that they would name a spaceship after her. I still don't know what Columbia really is but I always think of my friend when I see something about it.

Coralie

When I was in Kindergaten or first grade, I took the bus to school. My bus stopped at the train tracks and opened its doors to let my imaginary friend Isabell in. She would sit by me, but we wouldn't talk.

Angie