story time

The Clives are master story tellers.  You can just ask our congregation at church, who recently heard Layla tell a story of a princess and a spider from the pulpit during testimony meeting.  (Disclaimer: Spencer and I were on a cruise, and Gramps was with the girls.  He bribed Cadence and Campbell to go up, and then Layla followed).

Recently Uncle Trevor came to stay, and while he was here, he told the girls an exciting and adventurous bedtime saga, that continued every night.  The characters were representations of each girl with names like Sugarbolt, Jungle Punch, and maybe Wild Girl?  Trevor was a horse who had lost his vision. Sugar punch (Cadence's character) at one point was sold a faulty rifle or something that blew up and made her legs not work, so she rode trevor the horse--he was her legs and she was his eyes.  I thought that was adorable.  They were on some mission to save their parents from a pack of Bandits and got caught up in a world of elves, magic, theives, midgets, "magic mushrooms" (I had to raise my eyebrows when I walked past the bedroom and heard that!), and of course, courage. 
 Trevor the horse and Sugarbolt.

When we drove to Chicago we had to take two cars so Spencer could work the rest of the day and get into town later.  So Trevor was my companion.  By the time we got to the hotel, I was so sick and worn down (being in my first trimester), so Trevor got the girls all ready for bed by himself and told more of the bedtime story while I drifted off to sleep.  I never even asked him to do that.
 Trevor the horse and a subdued Jungle Punch.

 Trevor swinging Wild Girl into Jungle Punch.

After the Holidays, the girls longed for more of Trevor's story!  Luckily, Spencer is also a skilled weaver of heroic tales.

One night after singing Layla her lullaby I came to Cadence and Campbell's room to sing to them and got to hear the tail end of that night's bedtime story.  I heard this, and my jaw dropped a little more each sentence:  "And then, Spencer the brave knight rode in on his ton-ton and attacked the ice monster!  But the ice-monster swung at the knight and he fell off his ton-ton into the snow!  The ton-ton's belly was ripped open and the brave knight thought it was over.  Just then, Trevor rode in on his ton-ton!  He found Spencer the knight in the snow and placed him inside the warm guts of the ton-ton, and then slashed the throat of the ice-monster!  Aaaah!!  Slash!  blah!!!"   It was something like that.  You get the basic idea (I'm not exaggerating.  Seriously.  Spencer is going to read this and be like "No no, the ton-ton used it's talons to slice open the ice-monster's throat" or "I didn't say guts, I said 'seething entrails'", but I think I'm getting the point across.)

By the end of the story my face was unmistakably saying, "Are you crazy! You fool!  I'm going to be up all night with kids having nightmares!  What are you trying to..." This is my "I'm very cold and I don't like it and I'm blaming it on YOU" face, but it's probably similar to the look I was making as I listened to the story.

 And just then, as Spencer announced the bloody and gruesome end of the ice-monster, Campbell, who had been lying still and quiet in her bed, jumped right up to her feet with her fist in the air and yelled, "YEAH!!!"

I put my judgy look away and gave that daddy a hug.  We need him.

Layla has picked up on this art of story telling and prefers to practice it in prayers (or testimony meeting).  Her prayers often sound like this, "Dear Heavenly Father, fank you fo' dis day, and da mewmaid didn't want to cwy but da witch wanted to make hew cwy so da faiwy pwincess danced a magicaw dance and den, and DEN....DA WITCH WAS A SPIDA AND DA MEWMAID WOUDN'T CWY!!!..."

I think she's got what it takes.

 You can tell just by looking at this picture of her running, right? This girl's got what it takes.

 

 

The girls ask me sometimes if I'll make up a story at bedtime.  I like to sing sweetly to them.  I like to read books to them.  I like to tell them in new and creative ways how much I love them.  But I DO NOT make up stories.  Unless I'm pressed.  My stories are basically like this:

 

"Once there was a mom who wanted her children to go to bed, because it was late and she knew their bodies needed sleep to grow healthy.  But they wanted a story!  So she told them a story and kissed their heads.  Then they went to bed and slept ALL the way until morning.  The end."

Cool story.

I stick to lullabies.

 

 

And leave the weaving of heroic tales to the real Heroes.