happy valentine's to frances.

friday we stopped at a little card shop to pick out a valentine for momby and ella asked the shop lady "what's your name?" the lady responded and then asked ella "what is your name?" "Frances Mae," said elenora. the lady said "oh, what a pretty name!" i just looked at the lady and shook my head. "her name is not 'frances mae'" i said. then i had to explain that elenora likes to pretend she is frances, from the books.

i dropped off ella with momby for the night and then j. and i headed to the country garden inn. we had dinner at our favorite thai restaurant before really crashing for the night. it's always so relaxing to stay there, with the fireplace and jacuzzi.

saturday we took a day trip up to kittery ME to the outlets. we ended up getting some clothes for j. and ella, and a shoe rack (badly needed) to help us organize our lives a bit better. when we got home we were able to spend a lot of good time with ella and momby.

this morning when i got ella up i said "do you want to go to Rockport today?" and ella replied "we'll see the ocean there." which surprised me, because i think we've been there about twice in the last year and i didn't know she knew what Rockport was. so i said "that's right, and what else will we see there?" she replied "a big christmas tree." which is completely correct, because the last time we were there (3 months ago) was for the live nativity. so i decided to see how much more she remembered about that time and said "what song did we sing the last time we were there?" and she immediately said "silent night." i just can't believe her memory sometimes. so i pushed her a little further and tried to see if she remembered the other time we were there in the last year (last spring, i think it was) and i said "one time, we went to gloucester to bass rocks before going to rockport, and what did we see at bass rocks?" and she said "we saw the big waves!" and i said "and what did you say about them?" and she said "that they were too big."

completely accurate.

then i brought her into the living room and noticed that my dad had sent photos of his time in africa. she sat with me as we scrolled through them, and i came across a photo of an outdoor market. i asked her "did we go to an outdoor market like that one time?" "yeah," said ella. "who were we with?" "mimi." "who else?" i asked. "grandma betty." she said. "what did we eat there?" "tacos." she replied.

this was last year, the first week of november.

today was focused around celebrating valentine's day for elenora. i gave her some new barrettes and some heart-shaped lollipops. then i took her to rockport, a beautiful town on the ocean where j. proposed to me. s. and aurora met up with us, and we had a lovely mommy-daughter celebration with special cookies from j.c.'s cafe. it was a really sunny day, and if it weren't for the wind it might have even been mild. as we walked through the town, ella started singing "happy valentine's day to frances" at the top of her voice.