Telling Stories

Back when I was just a geeky-looking nerd in elementary and middle school, I used to love working on puzzles. I was pretty darn good at them, too. I could just sit for hours working on their assembly, feeling perfectly content. I would come up with stories to tell myself while placing puzzle pieces into their correct locations. Most of the time, my imagination was running rampant while I went about the soothing repetition of putting together a picturesque scene from somewhere else in the world. Working on puzzles and creating story lines went hand in hand, and I enjoyed almost every moment of it.

Okay, so I am still a geeky-looking nerd all these years later. I would love to sit and work on puzzles once more, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to find a spot to set up a puzzle table that is safe from "helping" kidlet fingers and randomly dropped puzzle pieces. Until the kidlets are all in school full-time, the house is sold and a new one purchased, and Pig forgets that he wants me to re-enter the workforce to help pay for three eventual college tuitions and our potential retirement, my puzzle and story days are not going to reappear.

However, I still have the ability to see three kidlets demonstrate that genetics never gave them a chance.

Horse has been telling stories since she learned how to string together a sentence before she hit the ripe old age of two. She could sit for hours on end, weaving intricate plot lines involving characters who seem oddly like a cross between a princess and herself. She would tell these stories anywhere and under almost any condition. Telling stories while placing letter magnets on the fridge while Mommy washes dishes? Check. Telling stories when she is supposed to be sleeping at night? Check. Telling stories while wasting shower water because she forgot she was supposed to be actually cleaning herself instead of telling stories? Check. She absolutely loves creating stories and telling them out loud to anyone who might be within hearing distance.

Rooster has recently developed both a love of puzzles and a love of storytelling, but she does not do them simultaneously. Most of her stories are told while playing with her dolls or stuffed animals, although she is quite adept at spinning a yarn when caught doing something she is not supposed to do. She must consider fact and fiction to be identical, as she will tell us oodles of stories about events that supposedly transpired in her daily life yet bear a remarkable resemblance to a movie she has recently seen.

Pig Jr. has yet to pick up on the verbal storytelling, but he absolutely loves his puzzles. He could just sit and immerse himself in them for hours on end. This, perhaps, is part of the sensory issues he and I both have. Repetition is soothing, and what could possibly be more repetitive than putting one puzzle piece after another in place? Then again, it could simply be that we just both love the creation of a finished product from hundreds of disjointed pieces. Regardless, Pig Jr. certainly inherited my adoration of puzzles. He is not much of a talker, but I do wonder whether he is telling himself stories while he works. His sisters do so verbally, but it would not surprise me to find out he would do so silently.

Of all the things my kidlets inherited from me, I am the most thrilled to see them enjoy their stories and their puzzles. Even if I am unable to indulge my own puzzle habits, and most likely won't indulge the story one unless I get the urge to try and write a book that will never sell, I can live vicariously once more through my little munchkins. I love that. :)