frances and her new mother

i have lost elenora. every time i try to talk to her i am told that it is "frances" who i am talking to. "i love you so much elenora mae," i will say. "frances mae," responds ella. "i mean frances mae" i say. "do you want a snack?" i ask. "frances," she prompts. "frances." i say.

during lunch today she looked at me and said "i want a new mother." i said "what about your old mother?" she said "i want a new mother." i said "do you want her to be different from me? or just the same?" ella said "just the same." i said "then maybe you should just keep your old mother, because i love you more than anybody."

this afternoon i took ella to the grocery store and she said "i always go grocery shopping backwards" and turned around and walked backwards through the store.

i initially thought this comment was just ella playing around, but the next time we went to the grocery store as a family and put ella in the shopping cart, j. pointed out that she actually does travel backwards that way.

tonight we took ella out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. it's the first time j. and i have gone to windward with ella, and she was so well behaved. of course, she insisted that she was frances the whole time, and that she was going out to dinner with her "old mother." when we sat her in the high chair she had us sit "ella" next to her. when her food came, she kept on offering bites to "ella," who was beside her. when i took her out of her seat she made sure i also took ella out of the seat. then she carried ella to the car and showed her the moon as we walked ("it looks like a smile," she said). and she buckled ella in next to her in the car.

we all split the following brownie sundae (including both frances and ella).

i read recently that an active imagination and imaginary friends are a sign of high intelligence.

i just never thought that my daughter would be replaced with a badger named frances and that ella would be her imaginary friend.

before bed i asked her what story she would like to read. one of the options was "a bedtime for frances." ella picked that one. "a story about myself," she said.