Bedtime Story

Every few nights before bedtime, Paige, Tony and I will sit on my bed and take turns telling stories. I usually begin with a short story like:

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Paige, and she went for a walk in the woods with Tony and Mommy. One day they came across a deer eating grass. They walked up to the deer and said, "Hi deer, how are you?" And the deer looked up at them and said, "Munch. Munch. Munch." The End."

Then Paige tells her story and hers is much like mine, except she'll have the deer say, "Munch, I'm fine, how are you? Munch."

Tony, however, is loving all the new words he's learning, so he elaborates and uses his hands, his eyes and his evolving vocabulary, and his stories go something like this:

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful, beautiful sun (his arms are spread wide above his head) and big clouds in the thunder sky, and all the people felt warm and the clouds felt soft, and, and Lightning McQueen and Sebastian raced the fan on the ceiling (it is within his line of vision) and tripped over the curtains, and Mommy said, "awww..." And that's the end of the story."

Tonight we shared our stories. I told two, Paige told two and when it was time for Tony's second story, he didn't want to tell a story. I pushed out my lower lip and asked him to please tell his story because he's so darn cute (and I'm so self-indulgent). After a few seconds of my pleading at him with puppy dog eyes, he rolled his eyes like any good three year old, sat up in bed and said:

"Once upon a time, there was a book and the pages had no story. And that's the end of the story."

The End.