{"id":42,"date":"2008-01-21T04:00:32","date_gmt":"2008-01-21T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/?p=42"},"modified":"2008-01-21T04:00:32","modified_gmt":"2008-01-21T11:00:32","slug":"fuf-uff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/?p=42","title":{"rendered":"Fuf-uff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know that I spelled it correctly.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure if I ask Bridget how to spell it, she might say something along the lines of &#8220;H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Micky Mouse,&#8221; which is how she claims just about everything is spelled.<\/p>\n<p>How Fuf-uff is spelled, though, is not really so much the topic of this post.  Who and what Fuf-uff is and represents is the topic I am trying to realize.<\/p>\n<p>Fuf-uff is Bridget&#8217;s imaginary friend.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re not altogether certain what kind of a person or thing Fuf-uff is, as Fuf-uff has been described as both a stuffed animal and a person just like Bridget.  She has responded at times that Fuf-uff is a boy, and other times that Fuf-uff is a girl.  We do know, however, that Fuf-uff is about 6 inches shorter than Bridget as Bridget looks down slightly to address Fuf-uff.  This also may mean that Fuf-uff was sitting on the floor, though.<\/p>\n<p>We first heard of Fuf-uff about two weeks ago as Bridget would mention on her way up to her room that she was going to go play with Fuf-uff.  Each time, she would be playing with a different toy.  It hadn&#8217;t dawned on us at that point that Fuf-uff wasn&#8217;t a toy at all.  This went on for a number of days.<\/p>\n<p>One night, Tina and I had put Bridget down for the night and closed her door (closing her door is a form of punishment for doing something wrong or just generally manifesting two-year old behavior; she likes her door open).  After about 5 minutes or so, Bridget started screaming.  I rushed into her bedroom to a shaking and sobbing child.  When I asked her what was wrong, she replied that Fuf-uff was scaring her.  Suddenly, I began to regret all of the sci-fi movies I had seen previously that illustrated a young child that is terrorized by some creature while their parents disregard and ignore the whole thing.  I started to get scared, too.  (See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.startrek.com\/startrek\/view\/library\/episodes\/TNG\/detail\/68550.html\"> ST:TNG:122 &#8211; &#8220;Imaginary Friend&#8221; (Stardate: 45832.1))<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The next day, Bridget was playing inside and Tina asked Bridget about Fuf-uff.  Bridget replied that Fuf-uff was out on the sidewalk in front of the house taking a nap.  Later that day, Bridget was happily playing in her room with Fuf-uff.  Fuf-uff regularly visits the Bridget&#8217;s Kitchen restaurant and plays with Bridget and her toys.<\/p>\n<p>An article at <a href=\"http:\/\/toddlerstoday.com\">toddlerstoday.com<\/a> says, &#8220;Typically, a child will create a companion for himself starting at age 2, but children as young as 18 months will begin to pretend, using a block as a cookie or miming drinking from a cup (Kelly, Wendy.  <a href=\"http:\/\/toddlerstoday.com\/resources\/articles\/batman.htm\">Living Next Door to Batman<\/a>).&#8221;  We had noticed the earlier signs of Bridget letting the 24&#8243; Santa decoration drink from her sippy cup during Christmas of last year (Bridget was 13 months old).  We also have a three-foot-tall &#8220;time-out&#8221; boy doll that regularly gets drug around the house.  I&#8217;m sure we have done other things to encourage a make-believe world, such as giving her a play kitchen and constantly teaching her how to &#8220;pretend&#8221; to eat the food.  The mysticism of Santa Clause or perhaps even the picture Bridget has on her dresser of Del Parson&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/deseretbook.com\/store\/product?sku=3024548\">Christ in Red Robe<\/a>&#8221; might be encouraging her to pretend to physically interact with somebody that she hasn&#8217;t physically met.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the reason, we were shocked as our little Bridget welcomed Fuf-uff into our household.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know that I spelled it correctly. I&#8217;m sure if I ask Bridget how to spell it, she might say something along the lines of &#8220;H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Micky Mouse,&#8221; which is how she claims just about everything is spelled. How Fuf-uff is spelled, though, is not really so much the topic of this post. Who and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bridget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}