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![[Scene: Beth, age 4, and I have been making origami paper boxes when I see her putting a rainbow frog toy in one]Me: “Why is the frog in the box?”Beth: “His name is Shiner. He’s been a bad frog and has to go in the box.”Me: “Oh? What did Shiner do this time?”Beth: “He lost his job. I gave him the job to guard my money. I gave him a flashlight. But now I can’t find my money, so… he was missing his job! And so he goes in the box!”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/64ca5bab46c7325b5e545374765fb104/tumblr_mjcq8bkjEp1qibvt9o1_1280.jpg)
[Scene: Beth, age 4, and I have been making origami paper boxes when I see her putting a rainbow frog toy in one]
Me: “Why is the frog in the box?”
Beth: “His name is Shiner. He’s been a bad frog and has to go in the box.”
Me: “Oh? What did Shiner do this time?”
Beth: “He lost his job. I gave him the job to guard my money. I gave him a flashlight. But now I can’t find my money, so… he was missing his job! And so he goes in the box!”
“I have to tell you the story of the little mouse named The Howt.
“He loves blueberries. He went to the crystal bird’s nest, but the flying turtle family forgot they were there at the wrong time. And they accidentally let more cousins come over.
“So he said, you’re at the wrong time! You’re nocturnal flying turtles! But they said, no, you’re wrong! Because they forgot.
“When the Howt went home he realized his parents weren’t there. There was a present there waiting for him. It said on it, ‘Howt Mouse Cleaner Toys.’ It had a magic trick pen, a rose, and the crumb of a nail — the pointy piece of a nail.
“So he waved his wand at it and made the nail into a swirly thing. But the nail wouldn’t stop swirling. He couldn’t stop it because he used real magic. It kept spinning faster and faster. He couldn’t stop it without the mouse scissors to cut the magic off the nail.
“He tried to get the scissors from the frog who lived next door. He got them and put the magic in the center of the flower and tried going in his mini rocket. He put a piece of cardboard on top and it started spinning.
“And his parents jumped out from behind the chalkboard and said, boo! And he lived happily ever after.”
— Beth, age 4, after insisting I listen to a story
—
Beth, age 4
Hollywood, are you listening?
by Beth, age 4
There was a flying turtle, and there once was someone who didn’t like the flying turtle: there was a fairy that lived next to the flying turtle’s house, and they did not like each other. And there was someone that did not like the fairy.
The fairy once had a friend, which was her keeper, that kept her from badness. She had a secret that she was bad. So as soon as someone heard her evilness, the friend ran for her life. She caught the princess and she ran into a dungeon, and locked her up inside it. There was nothing she had been bad for, nothing she did that was bad, but the friend locked the fairy up.
Whenever the friend wanted to have an adventure, she would just go to the flying turtle’s house, and go look for the turtle of course! They lived in the state of America.
Once they had a bad adventure together, because they had lost each other.
Once they had an adventure with an email that someone had broke out of something, which was magic to break through a brick wall. As soon as he sent it, they had to go back to see who it was. They realized that it wasn’t a magic person. So they put up a sign that said no one else was going in there, only magic things.
They also went on other adventures that were about love and loving each other.
The End
— Beth, age 4, telling an improvised story to her stuffed animals
| Luke: | [age 7] "So this caffeine is walking around LIKE CRAZY, then a can comes along and fills itself up with caffeine, then a guy comes along and drinks it and can't stop going to the bathroom, then a kid comes along and drinks more of it, then the kid talks ALL THE WAY to California. And then there's this weird trampoline there and he jumps on it until HIS HEAD FLIES OFF! But his head has a parachute on it and it parachutes itself all the way to New York City, and it lands on the Empire State Building and becomes a famous landmark called THE BODILESS BOY!!" |
| Me: | [looking at soda can] "Did you drink my whole soda while I was gone?" |
| Luke: | "YES!" |
| Me: | "Hmm. There's a lot of caffeine in it." |
| Luke: | "I KNOW!!!!" |
