A bear!

The other day Leif and Ellie were down at the river for a little walk. Out of the blue Ellie asked Leif to carry her. He said she didn't need to be carried and that she could walk, but she insisted she needed to be carried. Upon further discussion she disclosed that she wanted to be carried because she saw a bear in the water and she was scared. This is also the story she relayed to my mom and dad, that she saw a bear in the water and wanted to be carried because she was scared.

There was no bear.

Ellie has never seen a bear while out hiking, and she has never seen a bear in the water. Furthermore, they were not in the water, but safe on dry land. She did tell me later that it was a white bear, and we made the connection that lately we've been watching the BBC Planet Earth series as a family and one of the recent episodes featured polar bears swimming and hunting seals... Now how do you explain to an almost 2 year old that polar bears don't live in Montana? I don't know.