Invisible Babies

Have you ever seen children playing and wondered where the ideas and imagination comes from and where is goes as we grow up? How something invisible and unreal can be so completely real to a child?

Here on the ship, some of the younger children have created the 'invisible babies.' Last year sometime, some of the girls decided that they had 'babies' out on Deck 7. They would how their arms as if they had a baby, take them in and out of the strollers out on deck, take them for walks and even tell me that their babies are crying or hungry or tired -- but nothing was there. I think the thing that made me smile the most was the 'stealing' of the invisible babies. One girl would walk over to another girl, grab a handful of air - the baby - and then run away laughing saying that they had the baby. The first girl would then proceed to cry and scream and say that someone had taken her baby. Then I was left to deal with a girl crying about a handful of air. I tried to tell her that all she had to do was fold her arms like she had a baby and tell the other girl that she had missed the baby, but I think that was a little beyond their understanding :)

On the first or second day of school this year, the invisible babies made their debue. When we came in from outside, about half the class came in with their babies. Realizing that if these 'babies' ended up with us sitting on the carpet, there could be problems, I told them that they would need to have their babies sleep in their cubbies. A couple girls looked at me like I was crazy - put their baby in with their bags and papers!? Was I crazy?! I finally got all the kids to do it and the rest of the afternoon went fine. As the kids were leaving, I overheard one of the boys getting a little upset in the hallway because he wanted to come back into the room and get something. His mom was saying that he should probably just leave it in the room, thinking that he was talking about a toy or something. When I suck my head out and asked what he was wanting to do, he said he had to come in and get his baby from the table. I let him come in, he walked to the table, picked up a handful of air and then walked out of the room completely happy. I said to his mom 'invisible baby' and she just nodded knowingly.

Ahh, children.