Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Do they sell Cliff Notes for Fairy Tales?

Every night I tickle Annie's back before bed. This started out as me just sitting beside her bed and tickling her back. As things tend to do with these kids, the process has gotten more and more drawn out and now I am in her toddler bed with her, singing her "good night" song and tickling her back/head/arms. Last night she wanted another book after the lights were out. I bargained with her that I would just tell her a story and asked what she wanted to hear, thinking it would be Frozen, or Cinderella, or Belle or some other princess story that I know backwards and forwards.


Annie: I want free burrs
Me: .....(blank stare)
Annie: FREE BURRRRRRSSSS, MOMMA!


At this point my Annie to English translator kicked in.


Me: Oh, Goldilocks and the Three Bears??
Annie: Yeah! Gawdywocks and the Free Burrs!


No big deal. I know this one. Goldilocks trespasses into a bear's house/den/whatever and is very hard to please, can't find food/chairs/beds that meet her quasi-burglarific standards and she ends up sleeping in someone's bed when the bears come home. Right? Right. I can handle this.


But Annie actually knew enough of the story to know what I was saying wasn't accurate, but she didn't know enough to actually correct me. Just to stop me and say "No, Momma, that's wrong." I didn't know whose porridge was too hot/cold/just right, so we debated that for a bit. Same with the bed and the chairs. We eventually worked it out and then we got to the end where the bears come home.


I was stumped.


What's the ending of this one? It would be appropriate for her to be eaten by the bears, that being the price one pays for trespassing and all that. But that's not really appropriate for bed time. I decided to wing it.


Me: And then the bears came home and saw Goldilocks and they were so excited to see her, they had a party!
Annie:....(blank stare)
Me:.....
Annie: I have to poop.


Thank God. Saved by the poop. Looks like it's time to brush up on my fairy tales since I can't rely on the poop break to bail me out of every story time bluff.

No comments:

Post a Comment