Sixty Months of Preschooler Frances

Birthday mornings around our house:

Frances's birthday was fairly casual.  I did send cupcakes to school, but this school doesn't make a big to-do about birthdays the way her Montessori preschool did - understandable, but a little sad.  After school, she had ballet class with her good buddy Darby.  For dinner, Frances requested white noodles and chicken, and I aim to please.

Last year, I interviewed Frances on her birthday for the first time.  I was amused and fascinated with her answers so I thought I'd give it another go.  She was a little hesitant at the start, but became more forthcoming towards the end.

Without further ado...

• What's your whole name?  "Frances Upton." [Same answer as last year; technically her whole name is Frances Elliott Upton.]
• How old are you?  Frances: "Four."  Mark:  "You're not four, you're five."  Frances:  "Oh, five." [Apparently the birthday party didn't make a big impression.]
• Where do you live? "Boston." [The distinction between Jamaica Plain and Boston is lost on her, but it's lost on many.]
• What's your mom's name?  "Morgan." [I'll be so pleased when she learns my last name.  Maybe next year.]
• How old is your mom?  "Um, I'm not sure.  I'm not sure, mommy."  [Last year, she guessed I was sixty, so this year's confusion is an improvement.]
• What's your mom's favorite thing to do?  "Um, play with me?"  [Aww, so sweet and innocent.]
• What do you like your mom to do?  "Uh, um, clean up the house?" [Mark loved this answer.  I will start looking for paid employment tomorrow.]
• What's your dad's name?  "Mark" [Mark Elliott Upton would also have sufficed.]
• How old is your dad?  "Uh, I'm not sure." [Last year she just asked Mark how old he was.]
• What is daddy's favorite thing to do? "I'm not sure." [Last year she said, "Draw with me."  This year's answer does not inspire confidence.]
• What does daddy like to eat?  "Sandwiches?" [She's not wrong.]
• What does daddy do at work?  "He draws buildings on paper and then his mates at work they build the structure that he drawed." [Mark thinks she means "classmates."  She hasn't picked up any Australian lingo.]
• What do you like to do with Daddy? "Play peek-a-boo."  [Mark and I estimate it has been between two and four years since they've played peek-a-boo, but we'll try not to split hairs.]
• What is your sister's name? "Chandler." [Chandler Hayward Upton, if we're being precise.]
• What does your sister like to do?  "I think she likes to play with me." [Chandler adores playing with Frances; she lives to play with Frances.]
• What do you like to do with your sister?  "Play with my toys together." [Actually, one of Frances's favorite things to do with Chandler is hang out in Chandler's crib.  They make forts.  I can get twenty minutes of cleaning in when they're in a fort-building mood.]
• Who do you live with? "My sister, Chandler; my Morgan; and Mark Upton." [Yes.]
• What's your favorite food? "Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and pepperoni."  [She has never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I try to feed them to her occasionally.  She may take half a bite, but she never fails to tell me that she doesn't like it.  Sigh.]
• What don't you like to eat?  "I don't like to eat rolls of hot dogs, because I don't really like bread that just had food in it."  [There's some truth coming out."
• What's your favorite color? "Green, orange, yellow, blue, purple, pink, red and silver and black." 
• What makes you happy? "Playing with my toys.  What was the question again?  Playing peek-a -boo and hide and seek."  [She actually spends a fair bit of time pretending to be a horse or Pegasus.  I lost track of her at a playground about a month ago.  Just as I was starting to get really nervous about her whereabouts, I spotted her at the far end of the playground.  She was flapping her arms for all she was worth and swiveling her neck around, which is how Frances imitates Pegasus.]
• What makes you sad? "I get sad when I have to go in my room.  That's it." [She most frequently gets sent to her room when she fails to listen to me.  It makes us all sad."
• What do you dream about at night?  "I dream all different kinds of stuff."  [She recently told me about dreaming of aliens that were spraying poisonous goo.  She was very upset about it.  I was very upset hearing about it.  How did she come up with that?]
• What's your favorite thing to do? "Go to school.  I love choice time.  You get to pick whatever you want when your name comes out of the little blue bucket.  Always my name is comes off last."  [She may be exaggerating about that last bit.]
• What's your favorite toy?  "My Elsa doll and my Cinderella doll.  That's it.  And jewelry."
• What's your favorite animal?  "Butterflies and ponies and giraffes and gorillas.  I love gorillas.  And unicorns."  [The ponies and giraffes don't surprise me, but I've never heard her mention gorillas.  We do visit them at the zoo, but she seemed much more interested in the fruit bats.]
• What's your favorite book?  "Where The Wild Things Are.  I just like the wild things."  [I would like this to be true, but it's also possible she was just trying to please me on this one.]
• What is your favorite song?  "Twinkle." [And then she sang "Twinkle, twinkle, little star."]
• What is your favorite game? "There's a different game I know but it was at a store.  It's a matching game.  It's a really easy matching game.  There's ponies.  It's really easy peasy lemon squeezy.  You find any pony you want.  But they're not My Little Ponies." [If anyone comes across a pony matching game, but not a My Little Pony matching game, please let me know.]
• What is your favorite thing to do at school?  "Do puzzles and stuff like that."
• What do you want to be when you grow up?  "A mom and a ballet teacher."  [She told me I was a great mom the other day.  It about brought me to tears.]