As to the stories I alluded to a few posts ago:A few weeks ago, Elliot asked quite enthusiastically for his Dad to read to him from his Children's Craft series of books. This, his dad thought to himself, would be a challenge because these books do not actually contain any stories. Instead, they consist of pictures and step-by-step instructions on how to do things like make a castle out of old tinfoil and how to make a space suit out of an old astronaut costume.
But, in order to keep his son happy (for this is now one of the two reasons to live), Elliot's dad pulled the book of choice (Elliot most often chooses the pink book of the series) from the bookcase and turned to a random page. At first, the stories that his dad made up involved the need for sleep. Example:
"Once upon a time there was a boy named Elliot and he and his dad and his mom had a big dinner where Elliot ate all of his food and his mom and dad, proud as they were, said 'way to go Elliot' and they gave him hugs and kisses. Then Elliot and his dad walked to the park and got the mail, then they went home and Elliot had a fun bath where he splashed and sang and let his dad wash his hair without screaming (Elliot screams more often than his dad while washing Elliot's hair). After the bath, Elliot ate all of his snack - which was delicious yoghurt and milk - and went up to his room to read stories with his dad. Then Elliot went to bed and fell asleep all night long and then played quietly in his bed when he woke up in the morning until his dad came in to get him. The end..."
Elliot sat quietly in his chair.
"Was that a good story, Elliot?"
"Yah."
"Are you ready for bed?"
"Yah."
And so he went to bed, quietly, submissively. It was weird, like I had discovered some deep magic spell. Usually Elliot asked for more stories. And then more stories, and he never went to bed without crying.
The next night he asked for more stories from the Child Craft books. And so daddy made up more stories. Stories about dinosaurs, and castles and Misty the cat, and icecream, and clowns and whatever the random pages we chose in those books had pictures of.
Then Elliot became transfixed on Thomas and the stories became more standardized.
"Thomas Train? Okay, yah, good." And I would read his Thomas books (although truthfully Elliot has them all memorized now).
And then two nights ago Elliot asked for "hammer story".
"Hammer story?" I asked. I quickly searched through all of his books to try to figure out what book he was talking about. Nothing matched.
"Must be a book you read with mom?" I asked.
"Yah." Okay, I thought, mom made up a story about a hammer... what should I do.
So I pulled down a Children's craft book again and opened the page to something... kids... balloons. I can't remember.
"Once upon a time," I began, "there was a boy named..."
"Elliot." He replied with a smile.
"That's right. Good job. And Elliot had a very good friend named..."
"Tate!" Elliot excitedly answered.
"True enough, Elliot. And Elliot and Tate loved playing together..."
"Hammer?" Elliot asked.
"Right... hammer. Hammer..." I struggled. "Well, Elliot had in his room... a hammer... that was ten feet tall. Ten feet tall... twice as big as dad. Twice as big as mom. It was a green hammer with pink polkadots."
Ten foot tall hammer, green and pink. Where would you expect a story to go from that point?
Well, for me, it logically led to a mystery. The hammer went missing, where was the hammer? I looked at Elliot and saw great concern in his eyes as this imaginary hammer of his was gone. He asked Tate where it was, he and Tate checked every room in both of their houses and then walked through the nieghbourhood.
So that you can sleep tonight, I'll let you know right away that it turned out that Uncle Andrew took the hammer to his house to surprise Elliot with a fresh coat of green and pink paint. Elliot was surprised and pleased and he and Andrew built a playhouse behind the house using the ten foot tall hammer.
Following the story, I looked at Elliot. Usually I lose Elliot's attention before the end of a long story. In this case, he was staring at the exact same spot on the wall as when I had started. His brain was obviously churning all the details from this harrowing adventure I had just related to him. Heavy breathing. Watering eyes. Some of it was sleepiness. Some of it, I think, was concern for the hammer.
Silence. Ten, twenty seconds pass.
"More hammer story?" He asked.
So I came up with two more hammer stories. One had him fixing things at Saskatoon Grandpa's house with his Grandpa. The other was a story of Elliot and Tate going to the corner store with five dollars and buying a hammer that they could share.
By then, I think, Elliot took pity on me. Obviously the stories were getting worse as time passed.
So he went to bed.
I went downstairs and asked mom to tell me her hammer story. It was pretty good too. Better than any of mine, as a matter of fact.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment