Mommy Went To Chuck E. Cheese When You Were At School

When I was little, my mom had this thing she would do to settle me down for bed and make me sleep.

She would draw on my face.

She would take her finger and lightly draw on my face as I was lying down with my eyes closed. Sometimes she would just draw and sometimes she would add a story about how she was driving around to different stores and places.

My nose would be our house and she would have to drive to the grocery store that was located by my ear. Her next stop would be to the post office that was located on my forehead. This was so relaxing and would always put me to sleep.

I also do this with my own children and they absolutely love it!

I have never got them to a fully unconscious state while doing this but it sure does relax them and they drift off soon after.

Until……

The other night, I don’t know what got into me. Instead of just telling my 5 year old son, Bency, a mundane story about how I was traveling to the grocery store and library; I began to spin a much different tale.

I drew a line from Bency’s nose to his ear saying I was dropping him and his sister off at school. Next, I drew a line from his ear to his forehead saying I was dropping his little brother, Cesar off at Nana’s house. After that, Mommy drove to Chuck E. Cheese, and had a party all by herself! Mommy ate pizza, played games and tore through the tunnels and slides.

At this point in the story, Bency cocked one eye open and had a puzzled look on his face.

I proceeded on with my story and drew a line to his chin and said that Mommy drove to the ice cream shop and ordered a triple scoop of mint chocolate chip and sat and wondered how the kids were doing at school.

Now Bency is starting to giggle with both eyes open.

Next, I drew a line to his cheek and said Mommy had to stop off at the grocery store and buy a huge chocolate cake to eat all by herself.

Giggling is getting wilder, spittle is coming out of Bency’s mouth and he is holding his stomach.

For my final destination, I drew a line to his other ear and said Mommy went to Sir Bounce Alot and jumped the rest of the afternoon on the huge inflatables until it was time to go pick up Bency and Iris at school.

This was the final destination because at this point Bency was laughing so hard that he rolled off the bed and was writhing around on the floor in fits of laughter.

My 7 year old daughter, Iris, overheard the commotion and came running upstairs to see what was going on.

Bency, still rolling around on the floor, tried to retell the story in between giggles and shortness of breath, “Mommy…..went to…..Chuck E. Cheese (long pause) when we….were at school!”

Iris looked at me with her eyes huge and mouth open wide so I had to explain it was just a story and do the same thing on her.

It took me awhile to get the kids settled down that night. From now on, Mommy is only going to the library and post office when the kids are in school.

Cesar sleeping as a small baby

Bency sleeping when he was 4 years old

Iris sleeping when she was 6 years old

This is me sleeping when I was a kid

 

 

 

 

Story Stones

My seven year old daughter LOVES to read and reads all of the time. If all of her books were destroyed she would be devastated. My five year old son likes bedtime stories but make them funny with some good rhyming or you’ll lose him (The children’s book about the 1847 potato famine in Ireland gave him a headache last night). The one year old likes books and frankly it doesn’t matter because I love to read children’s books. As the other two outgrow sitting and listening to me, he as the last of the children will be forced to be my reading companion whether he likes it or not!

Besides reading to the kids, I have a stack of blank books that we sit down together and write stories in. Each person takes a turn writing a different page and in turn we end up with a book that goes from dinosaurs eating people to princesses dancing with the dinosaurs.

The other day, to mix things up a bit, I told the kids to grab some rocks from their rock garden. (My kids collect rocks when we go places. We have a few rocks from hikes we’ve been on and the beach but they also collect from grocery store parking lots or anywhere they see a good rock.)

With the rocks gathered and my caddy of paints and paintbrushes set up I told them we were going to make Story Stones. Their eyes lit up with excitement at the prospect of combining two of their loves…Rocks and writing stories…

We went in our usual fashion of taking turns telling the story but this time while the kids spun their tale, I painted a rock with the key characters or items pertinent to the story. I painted a princess, banana, God, unicorn, present, zebra, coconut, monster, math book, boulder and cotton candy. The story was in their usual bizarre nature and I liked it because it made complete sense to them. It was not even remotely strange to pair up princesses and God.

When we were done I explained they can continue to make up all kinds of stories using these. That afternoon the kids played for hours while I listened from the kitchen. It was good and only one fight broke out when Bency wanted the unicorn to stab the princess with it’s horn. Iris found this completely unacceptable and demanded a retraction.

I knew we had a hit on our hands when Bency requested to play Story Stones by himself yesterday. Bency make up a story without the aid of his mother or sister???? Amazing!!! That is until I peeked in on him a while later when I heard strange noises coming from the dining room. Bency had made up a makeshift shuffleboard game and was sliding the rocks across the table making them bump in each other and sending them flying.

Story Stones are wonderful. They appeal to boys and girls of all ages. They invoke creativity. They can be used solo or with many. Make some today. Do NOT hold me accountable for damage to your dining room.