This is a true story, that happened to me this morning.
I’m getting ready to leave for work, putting on my shoes,
when I look over at my kid eating his breakfast with this forlorn look on his
face.
“What’s wrong, kiddo?” I ask.
“I’m bored,” he said.
I laughed, but he looked at me with all the seriousness that
an 8 year old can.
“So, go do something,” I said.
“What?” he asked.
I thought for a moment. Then, I responded with this.
“Go in your room and get a figure. Put it on the bookshelf
behind you, and say it’s a Prince that’s been captured and locked in a tower.
Get another figure and put it next to him. That’s the evil villain that’s
captured the prince. Then, get some other toys in your room, and make them the
heroes that have to rescue the prince.”
He giggled.
“They have to travel all the way from your room, across the
living room, into the dining room and up the bookshelf to face the villain and
rescue the prince. Along the way they have to face many dangers.”
“Like what?” he asks.
“Monsters and traps,” I answer. “The haunted couch. The
giant cat that guards the door.”
He giggled again, but this time he got up. He went to the
cat to look at her staring out the door at the birds outside, and smiled. I
smiled back at him.
“Get some of your stuffed animals and placed them around the
house,” I said. “Those are the monsters that the heroes have to battle on the
way to the bookshelf.”
Then, we went into his room, and I look around. I found a
lego knock-off figure that looked something like an astronaut. I picked him up,
and held it up to him.
“This is the Prince,” I said.
He picked up his stuffed Yoda doll.
“And this is the evil Yoda that has captured him,” he said.
We walked out to the dining room and put the prince in a
corner of the bookshelf, and he placed the Yoda doll next to him. Then we went
back to his room, and I grabbed two teddy bears that were on the floor. I
brought them out into the living room and put them on the green lazy-boy chair.
“These are the two dire bears that live on the Green
Mountain and guard the weapon the heroes need to defeat the evil Yoda.”
“You mean, the Golden Lightsaber?” he said.
“Yes, the Golden Lightsaber.”
Then, he picked up two clothes hangers and hooked them
together. He pointed to the white blanked that was on top of the chair.
“On top of the Green Mountain was the White Hills, where the
hook trap is.”
“Fantastic,” I said.
Sadly, that was when I noticed the time, and realized I had
to leave.
“I gotta go, kiddo,” I said. “But you keep going. And when I
pick you up from camp today, I want to hear the story of the heroes that
rescued the Prince.”
“Okay,” he said, as he carefully put the hook trap on top of
the White Hills.
I left the house with a good feeling in my heart, and the
promise of a good story at the end of my day. I don’t think it gets much better
than that.
