Tag: storytelling

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Little Squirrel and Little Goosey

Ah, Saturday. It’s like the Death Valley of the blogosphere. Not very many people publish blog posts on a Saturday, and there are even fewer blog readers. But here I am, typing my heart out for NaBloPoMo. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and pull up a chair. I’ll tell you a story about stories.

Lily and Emmy love to listen to stories. Not just stories from a book, but stories that Ed and I make up. We each have our own character that we have developed over time. Ed’s stories are about Little Squirrel. My stories are about Little Goosey. Amazingly, when the girls beg one of us to tell a story, the character’s day mirrors our own day. For example, on the day that we visited the pumpkin farm, LITTLE GOOSEY WAS THERE, TOO! I know, the coincidence just floors me.

While we don’t actually see Little Goosey very often, we spot Little Squirrel all the time. She lives in our yard, along with her friends Chippy and Little Squirrelita. Little Squirrel also likes to travel. She hops on top of our minivan when we go visit Grandpa, and she even went with us to ride roller coasters at Great America. She’s a very bold little squirrel.

So bold, in fact, that she will come up on our front porch to eat our pumpkins.


View video here.

Lily and Emmy have asked me why I talk so funny to Little Squirrel. I do talk baby talk to her, I guess. But she’s just so darn cute! As long as she stays outside, that is.

Little Goosey prefers the pond to our yard. That’s why we don’t see her very often. The pond is across the street from Dunkin’ Donuts, so I would imagine she also goes there quite a bit. She just can’t resist a pumpkin donut in the Fall! Can you believe that she flew all the way up to Alaska with us? She looked rather silly sitting in the airplane seat, but her wings were just not up to that long distance flight. She is still quite young and her wing feathers are fairly new, you see.

Now that you’ve been officially introduced to two other “family members,” they just might stop by Lemon Drop Pie again!

 

NaBloPoMo November 2012

Do you tell stories to your kids, or remember stories you were told when you were little?
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Up to the Balcony, Part 1

Fairy shoes. I thought my mom had fairy shoes. When Mom played the organ, she would slip off her street shoes and put her organ shoes on to play the pedals. Her organ shoes had very pointy toes with tips that curled up slightly. I thought they looked like fairy shoes, although black is not a very fairy-like color.

My sister and I often went with Mom, up to the balcony. We listened to her playing the organ and also her singing. She sang solos often in church, accompanied by my first grade teacher who was the church organist. During one rehearsal, I tripped and fell up the stairs, hitting my head on an old radiator. I cut my head open. As head wounds do, the cut started bleeding profusely. Mom held a wet wash cloth on my head during our 35 mile drive to the nearest emergency room. These were the days of big cars with long bench seats — I sat next to my mom and lay my head down on her lap while my first grade teacher drove. I received a few stitches on my temple that day; the scar is still visible under my hair.

After that trip to the ER, I traipsed up the steps more times than I can count, up to the balcony, to watch Mom play the organ or practice her singing.

Watching an organist play the organ is like watching a carefully choreographed dance. Heels and toes glide gracefully across the pedals; hands and fingers play the keys and change the stops. Many organists also sing along with the hymns they are playing. Organists are the original multi-taskers.

The correlation between church music and organs had been firmly planted in my brain as a little girl. Imagine my amazement when I attended my first major league baseball game and heard an organ playing! Ta-da-da-da-ta-DA! CHARGE! My high school had an organ in the auditorium, and for four years I wondered why. Finally, during baccalaureate, I heard that organ play. And what a surprise to discover my physics teacher was the organist!

After I graduated from high school, I was off to Valparaiso University, where I heard an amazing organist play in the Chapel….

(to be continued)