
I have a turtle named Dracomir, in the form of a hand puppet. When I lived with a toddler, she liked to play with Dracomir (who gave birth to little bean-bag turtles, in defiance of reptile biology. Or carried them around in a marsupial pouch between shell and hand-puppet-casing, in defiance of non-puppet biology.) As I've mentioned elsewhere, the toddler is now a big preschool girl with a baby sister. And I'm living a few miles away, with visiting back and forth.
The little girl sometimes uses what her mother calls "3 year old logic," which is a lot like what other people call "wishful thinking" or maybe even a form of sympathetic magic. (It usually doesn't work. *shrug* Most 3 year old attempts at mechanical engineering don't work either.) "We're going to make cookies this afternoon." "I can do it all by myself." "I have a turtle just like that one." But now she really DOES have a turtle just like this one...her grandparents found it somewhere in Pennsylvannia because they knew how much she likes mine, and they gave it to her to entertain her during her sister's baby naming. She named it Dracomir, just like mine.
Occasionally, I've been known to refer to a relationship as "too complicated to explain." Though when I just refer to someone as a "friend," no explanation seems to be required, which makes life simpler. And it avoids the question of how to think of the parents and other connections of a TOCOTOX, when they feel like extended family. (The parents of another TOCOTOX, if he's being prudent [which is not a given] are unlikely to know I exist.)