Lolly

As my father-in-law has said on more than one occasion as our family story unfolds, "History has a way of repeating itself."

Her name was Janice.  I met her when I was five.  I found her homeland in The Illustrated Encyclopedia Britannica that held a place of honor in our home.  There it was, an illustrated map of Africa, with little icons of of what notables each region produced.  Sometime later, Janice immigrated to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and I would think of her fondly or give my family updates on her when we passed the stone structure I considered her home.

Janice and I kind of lost touch after awhile, but she was always such a faithful, obliging, imaginary friend, I still think of her fondly today.

Enter Lolly.

I started hearing about Lolly a few weeks ago when Landon wanted to cite who had taught him something or to attribute experience he wished he had to someone.  "Lolly knows how to fly a plane, Mom." or "I need to start learning math in a couple weeks.  Lolly knows Math."

Lolly is funny and mischievous with a real fondness for talking about all things poopy. Tonight I heard an elaborate story in which Lolly was caught in an elevator for four hours.  "She had to sleep in the elevator until a doctor came and fixed it and got her out."

"What did she think of that?"
"She thought it was funny."

Yep.  I bet she did. And now I'm pretty sure I know what happened to Janice.  She grew up and had a kid who became Landon's first imaginary friend.