Reed originals

On a few occasions, I have made up stories for Reed and Spring. The first time I did this, it was after we had a bat in the cabin at Lake Chelan. It was exciting and scary at the same time and it happened right before bed. I could see that Reed really needed to process the incident before bed, so I told him the story of Bernard the Bat. He was a very friendly and curious little bat who wanted to meet a family staying in a cabin. Bernard goes into the cabin, but quickly realizes that he has startled the family and decides to leave and not come back so he won't scare them any more.


I've also made up stories to help pass the time when the kids are bored and cranky in the car. Reed really likes the story of Sally the Schoolbus. She is a brand new bus who is so excited to take kids to school on her first day, that she gets up too early and finds there are no kids at the bus stops. Another story I tell is the story of Frankie the Fish, which is basically the story of the salmon life cycle.

So it was exciting to me today, when Reed made up two stories for me! We were playing "a snuggle up in bed game" as Reed calls it (this by the way, is my personal favorite game we play) and Reed told me two bedtime stories. They were so great, I wanted to write them down to remember them, so here they are, in as close to their original form as I can remember.



R: Once upon a time, there was a little boy. He becided [sic] to go to the duck pond, and what do you think he saw?
Me: What did he see?
R: He threw some bread at the ducks! (In a later iteration of the story, he talked to the ducks and they went "quack, quack, quack".) Then he went home and played hide and seek with is mommy and daddy.

R: Once upon a time, there was a bird and he becided to visit his friend who was called a Eagle. And what do you think they did?
Me: What did they do?
R: They went swimming in the water together! Then they went home and played hide and seek together!



Reed also has his first imaginary friend now. I think his friend may be an offshoot of Bernard the Bat, who we would occasionally "see" after we first met him at Lake Chelan. Reed's friend is Robinbird. Robinbird especially likes to play a snuggle up in bed game with us, but also likes to nap in my bed while Reed has naptime, and sometimes comes to the grocery store with us. It's very sweet!


And Reed is also dabbling in photography these days. Usually, he captures images of his feet, or the ground, but sometimes, if you position yourself correctly (as I've done here) the artist will see fit to capture your image!

And as for Spring... I can't believe she's almost 18 months old now! She is incredibly mobile (she can crawl into her high chair which is a little scary!) and communicating well. We're doing sign with her and off the top of my head, I can think of more than 20 signs that she knows (dog, cat, nurse, eat, apple, more, water, brush teeth, bath, shoes, cheese, wash hands, daddy, music, book, up, Hat, potty, bird, all done, waves goodbye and shakes her head no). There are also numerous signs that she will copy, but that she doesn't incorporate into her everyday vocabulary.

One of her tear ducts is still slightly blocked and has been since she was born. It's better than it used to be, but still not great, so we took her to an eye specialist a few weeks ago. Because her eye isn't terrible, he didn't recommend surgery, yet. We're doing some eye drops and vigorous eye massage to help her duct open fully. If not, she may wind up having her tear duct probed.