We shield Leilani from much of the world… no TV in our house, friends who introduce her to bad movies get warned or dumped, “The sound of Music” ends with a wedding (no Nazis there), we don’t allow guns (and she never asked, even made a “No Guns” sign).
Still she has a life that we don’t know much about, some of it is at school, information she gets from children. She does go on playdates without me sometimes, and the news could be on (although I doubt it). And she also has a secret place in her inner world, that she visits in meditation and guided journeys. We call it her garden. There are waterfalls there, tame dolphins, rainbows, princesses, dragons, dinosaurs, unicorns. And Hale. Hale she told me moved to the garden recently, he is 5 (but she is not sure, he is a boy though, and not a man). He dyes his black hair blond, before he lived in Africa, but his house was bombed. The bomb killed his mom and dad, and all his neighbors, but not Hale. He did move to the garden though. I told her to tell Hale not to speak of bombings to her since she is only 4.
It is also interesting what she draws on to explain her world. She made up a song about “Schnurr” who did not pay attention at school, he could not count so he could not count his money later on and he could not read, so he could not read books, and he even married a boy, because he did not know better (I apologize to my gay readers, but I still think it is funny. To the ones in Austria: Remember, this is San Francisco? And no, I did not jump in with questions or explanations.)