It's a Beautiful Imagination!

"I'll play slapjack with you."
"Ok, but we have to play with Lilian and Alyssa, too."
"Who are Lillian and Alyssa?"
"They're my two friends.  See?"  Donna pointed to a black dog beanie baby and a pile of fur.
Sophie looked up at me rather quizzically.  Then returning her attention to Donna, she replied in a skeptical tone of voice, "Lillian ... is ... a tail."

Donna is without younger siblings today, since Joe took the other three littles along to his parents' house to attend a cousin's funeral. 

I was left here with Clara, Sophie, and Donna.  Matt is at his two week annual training for the Marine Corps.  Louisa and Elsie are working nights; so they sleep all day.  It's kind of like a vacation for me.

I was not sure, though, how Donna would do without any other littles.  My kids have never had to be alone, to find things to do to occupy themselves on their own. 

But I needn't have worried with Donna.  She came out first thing on this gloomy rainy morning, dressed in one of the princess dresses.  She had a little beanie baby friend and a tail.  A black fur piece of tail from some preserved animal pelt.  She held up the tail and showed me the "ears" and the "nose."  And introduced me to Lillian. 

Then she proceded to enact all sorts of stories with these friends.  After many other adventures, "they" decided to play slap jack. 

Alyssa won. 

Donna showed me several times throughout the game how thick Alyssa's pile of cards was growing.  She had me look to see how eagerly Alyssa jumped onto the card pile when a jack came up.

Poor Lillian just couldn't compete.  She lay lazily off to the side and did not seem altogether engaged in the game.

Eventually Sophie finished the drawing she was doing nearby.  Apparently She felt bad for Donna having to play slap jack alone, as Sophie naively thought.  And so Sophie offered to play with Donna.

"I'll play slapjack with you."
"Ok, but we have to play with Lilian and Alyssa, too."
"Who are Lillian and Alyssa?"
"They're my two friends.  See?"  Donna pointed to a black dog beany baby and a pile of fur.
Sophie looked up at me rather quizzically.  Then returning her attention to Donna, she replied in a skeptical tone of voice, "Lillian ... is ... a tail."

Sophie was very patient and kindly played with Donna.  And her two friends.  At some point Sophie and Donna decided it would make the game go a little better if each of them "acted" one of the friends.  Apparently Donna had a few extra rules with which Sophie was unfamiliar, because I heard the following interchange:

"What kind of rules do you have?  I've never played with these rules."
"They're the Poptropica rules."

Hmmm.

I got a phone call, and had to leave the room.  But when I returned, Sophie was gone.  But Donna, Alyssa, and Lillian were still playing cards.  This time Go-fish.  It's so fun to watch her asking her friends if they have one or another card, and then she looks at their cards and answers.  And in turn, she asks on behalf of one of the others for some card the friend needs.

Just now Donna exclaimed, "I'm winning!" 

Oh? really?