The other night MDF was talking about imaginary things and told me that there were “muntoos” in the house. She said they didn’t have ears or eyes but they had sharp fingers. Unfortunately she started thinking about them too much and her imagination started running away on it’s own.
I got her down from the table and she wanted me to hold her. I said, “OK, I’ll just step on the muntoos.” That was the wrong thing to say; it just got her thinking more about these things on the floor.
Then I had to put her down and go do something. She said, “no there are muntoos.” And I tried to console her, “Just step on them.” She took me seriously, but certainly did not want to step on anything. So the minute I put her down she started crying.
After that I tried very hard to tell her that these were imaginary things, not real. Eventually it seemed to sink in, and we started talking about the imaginary caterpillars (which were much nicer than muntoos).