D and I are creating a monster, I think. N got to a point awhile back when she wanted us to make up stories to tell her before bed. We exhausted our innate story-telling resources after about 2 nights. D told her the story of E.T., and she loved it. "Brilliant!," I thought. So I decided to tell her The Lord of the Rings...all 3 books, which required some re-reading on my part to keep everything cohesive.
At about the same time, D started telling her the Star Wars trilogy. My MIL has saved some of D's Star Wars toys, which N plays with when we visit on Sundays, so she was familiar with the main characters. For some reason, though, N has been harping on D to tell her more, more, more. She simply can't get enough of the story.
Tonight, she was absolutely pooped at bedtime. Today was the first time she has ever walked around the zoo without having the double-stroller to fall back on....so she was beat. D started reading her a Star Wars book my MIL gave her for Easter; he barely got 3 pages into it when she zonked out. She still (yes, still) uses a pacifier and was sucking away, making this squeaky sound that signals she is well on her way to dreamland. D turned off the light while she was squeaking. As soon as the light went out, she pulled the pacifier out of her mouth, said, "Star Wars," put it back in her mouth and fell right back to sleep. Her eyes never opened.
D mentioned to me the other day that he has wondered whether he is ruining the movies for her when she gets older. I don't think so...because she is envisioning the stories in one way, a 4-year-old way, and she will be much older when she sees them. I think (and hope) the movies will be magical for her because she already feels connected to the stories and has her own ideas of how characters and planets look. For the longest time, she kept insisting that Merry and Pippin in TLOTR were girls, and she referred to them as Mary and Jill. I finally had to explain that their real names are Meriadoc and Peregrin.
I have tried to find a Lord of the Rings book for young children, but I don't think there is one around. We have The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe picture book, and she really enjoys that. It is hard for me to describe the way certain characters look to her, like Gollum. There is a book we've read called, The Terrible Baby, and I told her Gollum looks kinda like the baby in that book. I didn't even try to describe the orcs because they scare the hell outta me. I think I said they looked like trolls.
As a child and high schooler, I did NOT like sci-fi or fantasy. In high school, I suffered through some Arthur C. Clark books (and I mean suffered). Being married to a sci-fi dork necessitated that I, if nothing else, learn to tolerate sci-fi stuff. Plus, there was a kid I taught my 1st year in middle school who introduced me to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, which I absolutely love (and have read the entire series now).
A true love has now developed. I count His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman as one of my all-time favorites. I figure N will decide in her own time whether she really does enjoy sci-fi and fantasy, but it is ultra cool to have a 4-year-old who can explain how Chewbaca put C3PO back together again on Cloud City and how Frodo and Gollum fought before the ring fell into the volcano.
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