tim

the experts say that having an imaginary friend is a sign of intelligence. that's what i'm clinging to at the moment as grant regales me with his hundredth tim story of the day.

instead of me trying to explain who tim is, i'll let grant.

"grant, who's tim?"

"tim is my brother. he used to live next to us and now he moved down to san diego i mean he moved to redondo beach next to dylan. he likes to play sports. he's about 8 years old. he's turning 8 in april. i mean on may 2nd. one day he had a knee reflection...i mean knee operation. he had four knee operations and about twenty hip operations. he used to live in philadelphia before he lived in long beach and then he moved to manhattan beach and now he lives in redondo beach. he likes all the baseball teams. phillies, yankees, dodgers, arizona giants, las vegas kiddos...kiddos? kiddos? yeah, he likes all kinds of teams. tomorrow i'm going to be on the phone for like 10 minutes with his sister, nikki. nikki is about 10 years old and she loves baseball i mean she loves soccer. and you know how many babies tim used to have? he used to have 11 babies. they died all when they were 17. because they were so old. i mean they were walking in the rainforest and got in a house i mean they were building a house with no windows and they got inside and couldn't breathe because the house had no breathing holes and they died because they had no oxygen. just like when i'm under the covers. they were in a sand fort that they builded and they didn't have any windows and they couldn't breathe and they died."

i gotta tell ya, tim is a very cool guy. he's always at the games daddy's watching on tv (lakers, dodgers - you name it) and he always knows who's going to win the game. grant usually calls him on his hand phone during the game to ask him what's going on. the conversations usually go like this: "mom, i'm calling tim. [pushes buttons on his palm.] "WHAT?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!!!!! OKAY - I GOTTA GO TELL MOM!!! [hangs up hand phone.] MOM - TIM SAYS THE LAKERS ARE WINNING 1 TO 5!!! AWESOME!!!"

i just love grant's imagination. one more cool, creative thing he said lately: we were playing the "alphabet game" where you find letters on signs and license plates as you drive along. we were looking for the letter "I" and he said, "mom - there's the letter I. the grass makes the letter I." he was referencing the lawn we'd just driven past, and how the blades of grass standing straight up and down look like Is. how cool.