Storytelling

I am one of the least creative people on earth. Give me a blank canvas and the best paints in the world and I will draw you a wobbly rainbow, pretty much every single time. I have no creative impulsive, no spirit begging to be let out. But even so, it is remarkably easy to make up a bedtime story that will make Nate happy.

Formula:

Starring role of a boy named Nate + adventure involving dinosaurs, Bakugans, or (newly) Bayblades + beating bullies = Nate wins!

Tonight's story was Nate and a group of 3 of his friends (Sophia, Leo, and Calio (Ca-leo? No idea. Friend from school). Each of them has a bayblade with special powers; Nate's has Unicorn Power (spikes pop out all over the sides), Sophia's has Golden Sunrise power (fire around the edge), Leo's has Laughter Power (shoots out a force field), and Calio's has...I can't remember. Something wicked awesome though.

So the bullies won't let them play at the playground and they BATTLE and Nate's team wins and everyone is awesome. This is the first story that actually caused Nate to break into applause. Proud moment.

Then Nate decides to tell ME a Bayblade story. He thinks for a minute and warns me that it's going to be reallys similar to my story, which is, of course, cool with me. He asks me who my 3 friends should be; we agree on Dave, Beth, and Emily.

And he begins, and he had me from hello. My Bayblade SHOOTS babies out. Awesome. He asks me what Beth does, and I mention that she just had twins so he says that her Bayblade has TWIN POWER that shoots TWO babies out and they have milk in their mouths and I suggest it's sour milk and he likes that and that's Beth's Bayblade power. He asks about Dave, and I remind him that he's a vegan and suggest TOFU POWER and Nate runs with it and he has SPICY tofu power and we WON'T GIVE THE BAD GUYS ANY WATER! Evil. Emily is really nice but her Bayblade says really mean words like "You're stupid! You're an idiot!" and it makes the other Bayblades infected with bad words and then it kills them.

Best story ever.

This sums it up

It happens over and over, just the same way, and I think it totally sums up the difference in personality between my two boys:

We almost always shop at Trader Joes, where they often give each kid a strip of stickers when they leave. The second the strip hits Jack's hands, he immediately starts peeling them off and putting them all over himself. (Please note in the picture that Jack is still sitting in the cart; we haven't even gotten to the car yet.)

Nate takes his strip, admires it, and then keeps it. Forever. He never uses a single one. Weeks later I find the strip and surruptitiously toss it in the trash (he never notices). It's a little sad, honestly, I wish he'd just use them and have fun with them. But then I think of my childhood sticker-books, collections of stickers all untouched and perfect and NOT peeled off, safely stored forever, and I understand his wanting to keep them fresh and perfect. Still a little sad though. (Please note in the picture that we're home, sitting outisde our house in the car.)



I wouldn't change either of them. They're totally perfect just the way they are. Mostly. :-)

Sex on the Brain

It finally happened, just when I had given up wondering when it would happen.

Nate knows that the girls have an egg, and the boys have a seed, and never once has he thought to be curious about how those jive cats get together in the first place. I was expecting it at 3, and at 4, and had finally quit expecting it when I was blindsided driving to a Chinese banquet a few Fridays ago.

I'm making a thing out of it, but in truth the question was uttered quite simply, and telling him was far less of a thing than I had expected it would be. He already knew that boys have a penis, and girls a vagina (which I've explained as an inside-out penis, a tunnel kinda-like), so I just explained the obvious points and that was that. I think I remember saying something about "rubbing against" and the seed coming out but it is kind of a blur.

He was totally non-plussed. He thought about it for a while, and then asked "So you did that?" and I said "yup!" and he said "With Daddy?" and I said "yup!" and we kept on driving. He thought again for a while, and then asked what was clearly most confusing him: "How do you know when to do it?" After resisiting saying "Oh you'll know" I explained that when you were older, mostly grown-up, and had a girlfriend or a wife or a boyfriend or a husband, you'd talk about it and decide you were both ready to do it. That it felt good and was fun, and a thing that people loved did together - sometimes to have a baby and sometimes not. He was still worried about knowing when to do it, I have this picture that he's worried he's going to be at school and all of a sudden it'll just be happening to him and how weird would that be? So I put it in a bit of context by saying that it would be around when he started driving that he'd start to think about doing it, that he didn't need to think about it until then, and that seemed to reassure him.

All in all, it went swimmingly. He hasn't asked about it since or brought it up in strange company or told his friends all about it, so that's lovely. A lovely boy, my Natey.