The First Frost of Chattasnootchie

Trust in a proper forecast around Chattasnootchie is at an all-time low after we literally ran Wilbur Garber out of town on a rail for missing a frost warning the night before the Quad-County Outdoor Flower Show and Pellet Stove Consortium Meeting was to take place. 

There was a time when Chattasnootchie didn't get a lick of frost all year, but that changed in the July, 1954.  Old Man Charles McCloin operating the ice house and supplied the town with ice in various forms.   One night, in a fit absent-mindedness, he left all the doors of his warehouse wide open.  The resulting billowing would reach all of Chattasnootchie, covering the entire area with a half-inch of frost.  The children were elated, the parents concerned, and Ida Dinkleburg's prized winnin' tomatoes were never the same at the county fair.

Of course, no good deed should go unpunished.  The unscheduled school closing for such a meteorological anomaly was cut short after Elmer Delroy misunderstood the concept of a snowball and simply layered large rocks with thin packing of snow. 

The school pictures the following week were quite gruesome, although the dentist, Dr. Everett Winslow-Tucker, was able to pick up a new Windstream trailer with all the extra appointments added to his schedule. Of course, the Windstream was purchased at the end-of-season sail at the All Season RV and Camping Jamboree, the last event for the fairgrounds before they close them for the month of December, for Jesus' sake.

Now Elmer was never a bright boy, but he did rise to become the greatest car washer and detailer in the Quad-County area.... even if he swore even to his death bed that he'd notice polish one of them there rice burners.

Not the Blog I Want, but the Blog I Need...

It's almost been two and a half years since I posted anything on this blog.  What began as a feeble attempt to track storytime has fallen by the wayside, only to be reawakened by my wife's inability to avoid a deal... and Donald Trump.

At this point my daughters are 5 and 7, and outside of the occasional role-playing game, most of our storytime is books they read, or sitting down together to watch Supergirl or the Flash. 

My youngest Millie, has just gone on a long tear of drawing pictures and asking to us to spell words.  This week she posted these gems:

My wife also went to Barnes & Nobles and bought out the clearance games to get ready for Christmas.   One item the she got for the home was Rory's Story Cubes an ingenious little storytelling device that I've heard great things done with on the RPGGamerDad Podcast. 


Between the cubes and the stories behind the pictures, I figured it might be time to relaunch the blog as the fun/wacky/kooky stuff my girls do plus the stories that don't actually qualify for a gaming blog.  Don't worry, the savage tales of Maja Millie and the neverending battle of the Ninja Turtles will still find a spot over on Gaming with the Gnomies.

Reintroducing.... Kenny the Gnome

While the physical act of the children falling asleep in the new house has been trying, the storytime step in the process of getting ready for bed has been working well.  We're three chapters into The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Maja is still interested, although chapter three is extremely long-winded. 

Sunday night Millie wanted a story read, and as she is obviously not ready for the real Oz books, I took her in her room, tucked her in, and started the third version of the story of David the Gnome.   We had just gotten a robust cast of characters when Maja was her age now, so a full introduction of the characters was at hand.  With no prep time and a sketchy memory of the actual show, we've kept it simple.

1. David found a fox who had it's paw injured in a steel trap.  He coerced a bear to help him open the trap enough to get the paw out, and the fox and David grew to be good friends as the animal convalesced outside David's tree house.
2. David fashioned a light cart to the fox for when they travelled to visit gnomes in far-off lands and needed to bring extra supplies.  One day, one of the cart's wheels broke, and by a stroke of luck, gnome fix-it-guy, Kenny the Gnome happened to be around and got things back together. 

Time to review the older posts to figure out what happens next...

The New Home and New Storytime.

After neglecting this blog for a long time, we finally have some related news.  We bought a new house and got everything set up this weekend. 

After hours of unloading the pod and picking up some random furniture from friends and family, we're almost settled in the new house.

With two separate bedrooms for the girls,   Bedtime has instantly become a whole lot easier.  Maja got her first "real" book from me to celebrate the move, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  At a chapter a night, we have 23 more nights of it.   I'd like to find a stand alone copy of The Marvelous Land of Oz and proceed like that through the series.  If not, I also snagged the first six books in a large anthology, but that feels a bit unwieldy for bedside reading. 

And I won't forget the gnome stories, or perhaps I can embellish the Nome Oz stories?

You Don't Mess With The Goldilocks...

This blog took a long, long winters (spring, summer, and fall) nap.  Real life was tough enought to work with the keep telling stories and singing songs to the girls AND blog about it.

At this point Maja, the oldest is 4 1/2 and Millie is almost three.  I've transitioned from stories for Maja to the same repetitive stories for Millie.  For the longest time, all she needed was a stock Three Little Pigs with some "not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin" interactive moments.

Nowadays, she's out after a story and a song, and the story of choice is Goldilocks and the Three Bears.    She just lays there and looks at me as the bears leave the house and the blonde ransacks it, it's when the bears come back that she gets animated for a few moments.

Broken chair?  "It's the Goldilocks"
Eaten porridge? "It's the Goldilocks!!!!!"

You don't mess with the Goldilocks, and if you do, you better have three bears with you.

To boldly go where the cupcakes are with you...

• This afternoon, Maja and I watched GalaxyQuest and I was shocked and impressed how excited she was watching it. She was very upset that her "spaceman movie" was over. Tonight at storytime, David the Gnome's rocketship went off course and crashed on a strange "beach" planet. David used cupcakes to befriend some strange robed guys in a giant van full of robots, and had a nice conversation with a gold robot. He got on a spaceship and back to the moon so he could babysit the Martian babies. Tomorrow night's story has already been requested, "David the Gnome, Uncle Kenny the Gnome, Zeke the Mouse, and RAPUNZEL go on an adventure!

  yes, David fed cupcakes to Jawas and conversed with C-3PO.  I'm a geek dad. Deal with it!

Choose Maja's Own Adventure

Hooray! Another one month post of the adventures in storyteller. Looking back, not much has changed... David the Gnome and Kenny the Gnome got off the island and safe back at home. David discussed finding his Princess friend a date, and on my wife's nights, he makes a LOT of cupcakes and feeds them to Martian babies on the Moon.

Right after that, David went on a vacation by himself to a "safe" tropical island to go to the beach. Some bad guys and pirates came by, but the police made them go away. I love how in Maja's mind pirates are not bad guys, they just associate themselves with them.

After a night or two about playing on the beach, David got back home to his wife (Lisa, that was David's wife's name on the cartoon. Let's stay consistent kids.). Instead of going back out on his adventures helping people, David sat back, relaxed, and entertained his friends who came over to see him with a story of the Gnome Princess. That story shall be told soon, I hope. David's first adventure back from his vacation is the focus of tonight's post.

The Mouse Family came by David's house looking for help. It seemed that monsters had overrun their house, and they needed someone to tell them all to go away. David accepted the challenged, called on his friend Kenny the Gnome for help, grabbed some rope, and away they went.

Rope? The first question I asked Maja tonight was "What will the gnomes do to get the monsters out?"

Her response, "They'll use rope to tie them up and drag them out."

The gnome duo wandered the halls and came upon a door that they could hear strange voices behind it.

"What do the gnomes do, Maja?"

"Kenny knocks on the door."

The room falls quiet

"David opens the door"

And two chair goblins, whose whole mission in life is to steal people's chairs, were in a room accumulating the house's... you guessed it, chairs. Working quickly the gnomes grabbed a rope and ran in opposite directions, tieing up the chair goblins and dragging them outside. The chair goblins departed with a grumble.

As they walked back in, they heard little footsteps. Behind them was a small mouse with big cloak and tiny sword.

"I'm Zeke, the Baby Mouse. I want to help."

After a few questions towards to the little mouse, Maja blurted out, "Kenny the Gnome will let him help!" End of discussion.

Zeke's adventure could have been short, as they looked into a pantry, didn't poke around for monsters, and they almost found Zeke eaten by a big hairy spider lurking within. Per Maja's instruction, the gnomes grabbed a bucket and put it over top of the spider. They quickly chucked it out the door.

Most of the other rooms were empty, put near the end they found a man sleeping on a bed. Again, Maja thought it best that the gnomes tie the man up and drag him outside. Of course, before the two tiny gnomes could try this, the man woke up and started screaming for help. Little Zeke the Baby Mouse could see someone running down the hall, so the three hid. The new man freed the first one and they left without a quarrel.

After a lunch of cupcakes the trio had brought with them (again, per Maja), they got to the last room to be searched, and inside was yet another door. It opened to a courtyard. Now Maja does not know what a courtyard is, so I tried to explain a room with no roof and a tree. Behind the tree lurked the Big.... Bad.... Wolf.... and he was hungry for gnomes.

"Maja, what are the guys going to do against the Big Bad Wolf?"

"Zeke is going to throw him out the window!"

Quickly David the Gnome and Kenny the Gnome scaled the tree to safety, the Wolf licking his lips as he circled underneathed. Then, the Wolf felt a tiny pinprick as Zeke stabbed him with tiny sword. A chase unsued and the Wolf soon saw the mouse outside the front door and charged him. Zeke, being incredibly small, snuck him around the door hinge and using all his might, flung himself against the door to make it slowly close, just in the nick of time. The Wolf was locked outside and the Gnomes had completed their quest.

The Big Bad Wolf grumbled something and staggered away, trying to figure out how such a tiny mouse could defeat him.

The trio were heroes, the Mouse Family had their home back, and Zeke was welcome to galavant with the David the Gnome anytime, so long as he had his mother's permission.

I told this story like a Choose your own Adventure book, with Maja calling many of the shots. She decided many of the characters actions, choose left or right (this way or that way) and was extremely involved in the story.

Truth be told, the handsome and dashing trio were actually sent to a kidified version of Dungeons & Dragons module B9: Castle Caldwell. I took out the killer bugs, blood sucking stirges, and crazed clerics of chaos with a talking statue (I put in an annoying talking clock, she doesn't know what a statue is anyway.) Outside of a combat reminiscent of "Touche Pussycat" from Tom and Jerry, she solved all the encounters with non-violent methods. I don't want her to be a bloodthirsty powergamer at age 3.