shadow girls

In my newest parenting read, _Your Four Year Old: Wild and Wonderful_, I read that four is a common time for imaginary friends to surface. (A brief aside to note that there really isn't anything so very wonderful about 'wild' as an adjective to describe a person living in my home.) I chuckled thinking that we had dodged that bullet. I mean, it's sort of cute and all, but mostly creepy to think of my kid talking to imaginary people. Greta now has two imaginary friends, Sara and Clara. This morning, the chased each other, went to swimming lessons with Greta on the living room rug, played hospital with her, and told jokes. One might think that a person talking to a set of imaginary people would hush her voice, perhaps to hide this secret behavior, a la the dude in Harvey. Nope. Greta's voice gets upped twenty or so decibels when she talks to the girls. I tried to join the fun, to no avail. When I tried to tickle and joke with Sara and Clara, I was told that they weren't in the room. Greta said, "Do you know why mom? THey are shadow girls. And, I am a shadow girl, so then I know where they are. But, you are NOT a shadow girl, so you don't know them." I think tomorrow we might talk about how quiet shadows are.