Telling Stories

For as long as I can remember we have read books to Owen before nap and bedtime. It's just been part of our routine. One day a few months ago (maybe even before Sydney was born?) Owen was riding in the car with his Nana when she decided to make up a story about him and one of his buddies riding in a hot air balloon over St. Louis to the zoo. Well, ever since that first story, Owen has become fascinated by the art of telling stories. Now, instead of reading at bedtime he begs for us to tell a story. In the airplane on the way to/from the beach, he was getting restless so I decided to tell a good long story and the problem was solved. On the beach playing in the sand he requested a story. When we're drawing together while Sydney naps he wants me to tell a story that goes with the picture we're drawing. He loves it.

He has always requested that his stories start like so: "Once upon a time there were two boys named Owen and Grant..." I let him tell me where the story is taking place (favorites include a jungle, a spooky forest, a haunted house, across the street, in Jamestown where king James - another buddy - lives, transformerland). After that I start storytelling and Owen gently guides the story along, making sure that I know which characters are good guys and which are bad guys - I cannot for the life of me get a story to complete without at least one bad guy. He also changes the sequence of events if they aren't going the way he'd like, and always attempts to keep the story going when he senses that it's reaching its conclusion (for example, I'm sending Owen and Grant back home to their Mommies and he interrupts, "No, they get back on their horses and go find a bad ghost in the forest"). He loves having sound effects added, and will add some of his own if need be.

I love that he's into storytelling. I think it's great for his imagination (although I've had to cut back on the number of ghosts and haunted houses that show up because he was developing a pretty serious fear of them). The only problem is that it's hard! For an extreme type A, left-brained person like myself getting creative and having to make up a story on the fly multiple times a day is very challenging. I have to admit that on numerous occasions I've had to talk Owen into just letting me read him a book because my creative juices are stagnant. Just another reason why I'm so grateful that Owen has his Daddy - Ben is exceptionally good at coming up with great stories.