An Imaginary PA for Lysander

Most children have imaginary friends.  My child has an imaginary PA.

Or rather – we’ve imagined one for him.  Do other parents do this?  Catch their child doing something quite ordinary and craft a whole story around it, complete with a carefully-considered idiolect and a silly voice?  Please say that you do this too; I’m always a little worried that it’s just us.

Lysander ‘speaks’ on the telephone.  I don’t know where he learnt it; we’re luddites who don’t even have a home telephone.  But hand him a rectangular-shaped object, or any object really, and he will put it to his ear and his sweet, high-pitched baby babble he says “Ela!  Ela!” complete with a bemused frown as to who could possibly be bothering him at home on a weekend.  He can continue a whole ‘conversation’ just saying ‘hello’ over and over with varying intonation.  Likewise if we happen to say ‘hello’ to him – the little hand does straight to the ear and he’s off again, chatting to a voice that nobody but him can hear.

So we’ve given him a PA and we’ve called her Marian.  We’re trying to teach him to order a double espresso to his office but he hasn’t grasped it so far.

Here he is, liaising with his personal assistant about his daily schedule.

At this age they are so funny and so sweet.