So, my daughter either has an imaginary friend that she doesn’t like or she sees ghosts.  I’m going with, she sees ghosts, even though I’m pretty sure I don’t believe in ghost.  At least I didn’t until my daughter started seeing Tippy.

It all started a little over a year ago.  We were living happily in our condo, having fun raising our adorable toddler and marveling at her explosion of words and concepts.  Not aware of the presence of Tippy.  One day I went in to get Maya out of her crib after a nap.  She was standing up in her crib like she was known to do and she looked me square in the eyes and said, very matter of factly “I no like Tippy.”  I wasn’t sure at first I had heard correctly but I decided to go with it.  I asked her who Tippy was, her response was “I no like Tippy.” Okay, I had heard correctly the first time, obviously.  ”Where is Tippy?” I asked hoping to glean more information about this strange new, whatever he or she was.  ”Tippy right there.” She responded while pointing at the ceiling near her light. Hmm, I thought to myself, that’s a strange place for an imaginary friend, even one she doesn’t like.  ”Tippy’s on the ceiling?” I asked for confirmation I was following correctly.  ”Tippy right there, I no like Tippy.”  she said again, still pointing at the ceiling.  To say I was freaked out is an understatement.

For several months this conversation replayed itself.  At least once a week or so she would mention Tippy and her disdain for him or her.  I continued to ask questions and reassure her.  I was eventually able to glean from her that Tippy was male, an older male at that.  Creepy.  As time went on Maya mentioned Tippy less and less often.  Hoping he had disappeared and not wanting to scare my 2 year old I never mentioned him unless she did.

After we moved to our new house I had assumed Tippy would be gone, especially if he was a ghost as I was beginning to believe he was.  And, that is exactly what happened.  Tippy seemed to have stayed behind at our condo.  Until we went to my in-laws place during our summer vacation, up in Canada.  Now why Tippy decided to follow us up there I’ll never know, but he did.

My in-laws have a split level house and Maya decided it would be fun to stand on the landing upstairs and drop a ball down to me in the front foyer (2 flights of stairs down) and then have me throw the ball back up.  We had been at this game for a little while when all of a sudden she closed the bathroom door (the bathroom door was just behind her).  I said “Honey, you can leave the door open, why did you close the door.”  Her response made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. “I don’t want to talk to Tippy, Tippy scary.”  What the what!!!!  After months of not making an appearance all of a sudden he was here, in my in-laws bathroom!!  ”Tippy is here?” I asked her.  ”Ya, I don’t want to talk to him, he’s scary.” She repeated.

Tippy only made the one appearance while we were at my in-laws, but it was enough to scare the living daylights out of me.  Since our return Tippy has not made an appearance so I’m hopeful that he followed us up to Canada but decided not to follow us home.

Who is Tippy?  What do you think, creepy imaginary friend or ghost?