My Little Storyteller

Tonight Koen, Tavin and Doug and I spent some time playing in the playroom. Tavin was still in a snuggly, tired mood, so he basically just stayed cuddled close to me. Koen, on the other hand, was full of energy. It was nice though, it wasn't crazy silly energy, just happy, playful energy. Tonight he honed that energy into storytelling. First, he started out by performing a "musical" where he made up songs and danced around, tonight he also accomponied himself with the xylophone. Thankfully, he moved on to telling stories (I like the musicals, but it is definitely quite loud). He basically copied the way that they tell the Bible stories at Kidz Church. He grabbed his Bible story book, he asked Doug to get up on the "stage" and help him act out the story. He told the story of Jonah and Doug acted it out. Absolutely adorable. Doug was an amazing sport and pretended to be the whale or fish of the story. Tavin actually crawled towards him at the perfect time when Koen said, "and the whale swallowed Jonah," so Doug reached out and grabbed Tavin, Koen loved it. Later, we told the story of Noah. This time, I read the story, Koen and Doug acted it out. Doug was the ark. Koen was Noah. Koen pretended to build Daddy, "the ark," with his wooden tool set. Then when they finished that, Koen moved his plastic zoo animals onto the ark. He was so slow with this process, I had to just proceed on with the story and make the rain happen to keep it moving. Koen enjoyed "the ark rocked this way and that way." Doug swung him around on the floor. Doug totally acted out the dove scene too. Hmmm, I wonder where Koen gets his dramatic flair? After we finished Jonah and Noah, Koen asked us if we wanted to do storytime. Sure, why not? So, he told Tavin and I to sit in the chair and he covered us with a blanket. Tavin, of course, loved this and just snuggled some more. He told Doug to lay on his bed and covered him with another blanket (which for some reason, Tavin thought was hilarious). Then Koen got on his rocking horse and opened his Bible story book and started to tell another story (which eventually just turned into Jonah, because that is his absolutely favorite story right now (thank you, VeggieTales)). It was so, so cute. He asked Doug to get up and stand and act out different parts of the story. He was totally into it, acting like a little Sunday School teacher. He would say, "Daddy, can you please stand up now" or whatever the motion was he was very polite, but also expected cooperation. =)

I was really hoping to get across the precious-ness of this special part of our evening, but I feel like it can't be explained. I would have loved to have taken a video, but there are moments like these when I don't want him to feel like he is acting for a camera or an audience. The pure joyous play just for the sake of play is the best. So tonight, I would have loved to have shared it with all of you, but the live show was just for us.