The Julia no one ever sees

Don't take all of them, OK, Matthew? They're my special tissues. Look what's on the back of them. It says "my special tissues." If you need a tissue, go ahead and get it, but don't take all of them or there'll be none left. Wait, Gofo needs a tissue, too; look at his nose. No, no take them slowly. You don't need a lot; the tissues are big. Look how big they are. I'll show you how big they are.

If there were 2 more tissues then we'd have 5 and you don't want 5. We'll just get one more tissue. Watch. We're going to break this in half... I'll rip the sides. Here you go. I'm the girl with tissues. Matthew, I bet you only need 4. Here's 2 of them. Wait -- one at a time. Here's one. Here's another one. You just need one more tissue? OK.

Wait... I'm a REAL person, OK? So I guess I get ALL the tissues...

And so on and so on and so forth and so forth. My fingers are tired of typing at this point, but Julia's still got plenty to say on the subject of tissues and her imaginary friends with drippy noses.

Julia spends an hour and a half in her room each day for "quiet time," but no activity could be more completely misnamed. There is rarely a full second of silence in the entire 90 minute period that Julia spends upstairs ostensibly resting. She just stream-of-consciousness talks the entire damn time, playing multiple roles in elaborate conversations, singing songs and otherwise entertaining herself. A minute after this tissue diatribe had ended, she was belting out a grunted version of Jingle Bells and reciting This Little Piggy. Three minutes after that, she was opening an imaginary umbrella and consulting a non-existent thermostat to determine whether or not she would need mittens. (But I LOST my mittens. I usually put them in my backpack, but they're not in my backpack. I checked all the pockets...)

I love the fact that Julia can entertain herself so beautifully on her own and I believe with all of my heart that the time she spends alone each day playing and singing and imagining and... well... babbling is invaluable. It's such classic kid stuff, but coming from a kid who is somewhat less than forthcoming with the classic kid stuff when other people are around, it's truly gratifying to hear her do these things in the safety and comfort of her own private space. I frequently giggle as I listen to her games and conversations with her imaginary friends. Often, I learn about school activities or interactions she hasn't otherwise mentioned to me. Occasionally, I even become aware of an issue or concern that needs to be addressed. But mostly, I just cherish my 90 minutes of peace while she cherishes hers, and at the same time, I cherish this glimpse at the goofy inner self hiding within my quiet, contemplative child.

I'm not going to have p-i-z-z-a at the z-o-o. I'm not even going to have i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m. Are you saying I'm going to have 2 pieces of p-i-z-z-a? No, I'm not. Evan, do you know what p-i-z-z-a spells? That's right, pizza! Do you know what b-a-n-a-n-a spells? That's right -- banana! Cookie Monster, could you pass that to Evan, please? Oh, here's a song... THREE little monkeys jumping on the bed. ONE fell off and bumped his head...

How on earth does this child manage to stay so quiet at school?