Bedtime stories, updated

[dwenius]

Yesterday morning, Rose was taunting her brother at breakfast by saying, "Wake up Charlie, wake up you sleepyhead! Chaaaarlie! ChAARLIEEEEEE! Come with us to Candy Mountain!"

As the stories involving Grit the Cabbage and Simon the Brave Man have developed, we have created a trope wherein Grit, riding in a pocket, is shouting some muffled message, but Simon can't hear him because "he had his headphones on, and was rocking out to Slayer [flash devil sign and make chunkkita-chunkita-chunk guitar noises]." So Nina brings her ipod and headphones to the dinner table for some reason, and guess what Rose tells her she is doing? Loudly, while falling out of her chair laughing?

Grit has cemented his role as the full time Kenny, destined to be eaten by Lucky the cat at the end of every episode. The more circuitous the path to said denouement, the greater the lol.

I'm not proud of this, but as sometimes happens in a serial comedy, we were forced to introduce some terrible stereotypes in the name of plot advancement. First, we needed a steady source of Mexican jumping beans, so the town now has a pastry shop owned by Manuel. It is not yet clear, X-files style, whether Manuel is devious, or merely nearsighted, as the jumping beans keep turning up in everything. For reference, when you hit the "bean reveal" part of the script, the musical cue is La Cucaracha. Bonus points for introducing the musical cue via snore, burp, fart, etc.

Similarly, we needed a ready source of salami. Don't ask. So we have Luigi, who runs the Italian restaurant and lets me work on my Chico impression.

The bean thing has really got legs, as evidenced by new favorite stories like "The Runaway Cake" and "The Terrible Night of the Bagels, which were not Cinnamon-Raisin at all."

We have also created a variety of other types of bean:
Mexican driving beans
Boomerang beans
Exploding beans, or Dynamite Beans
Martian Meany beans

That last, requiring the creation of a Martian, led to new character Oliver, who by nature only wants to talk to other small green beings and is therefore drawn to Grit. Did I mention the part where Grit and Simon are fond of stargazing? A useful plot point for getting them out of the city into UFO territory.

The slug stories are still popular, especially ones featuring Great Grandfather slug and his particularly wheezy laugh. It is hard to do and kind of roughs up my throat; have to work on that one.

The Three Billy Goats Dumb and the Lovable Wino inhabit the same city block as Grit and Simon but are featured infrequently. Similarly, requests for Bobo the Penguin, George the Monkey, Iceblock the Whale, and Peanut Butter Squid the Elephant have diminished somewhat. I'm sure these things are cyclical.

At this point, if A. tries to put the kids to bed and I am home (not traveling), there is great sadness. On the positive side, the risk of losing story privileges at bedtime is a powerful behavioral deterrent, much more effective than taking away TV or electronic toys.

Comments

[epileptikitty.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday indeed!

To a year of less suck! Huzzah!