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.

'Ere We Go Again!

It's been awhile... I knew well ahead of children that life does that to you, no matter what the circumstances.

Over the past month the storytelling duties got passed onto my wife and ultimately dropped, although the blogging was the obvious first choice of sacrifice. The Three Little Pigs are still there, and David the Gnome has had adventures in Oz, helping a princess find a prince, babysitting gnome and Martian babies, and sailing a boat. And my wife loves to make David bake cupcakes for some reason.

Tonight the sleep schedule was re-established, and David came back, along with his friend Kenny, as they sailed their boat in the sea. A big storm came up and the big waves knocked the gnomes and their boat out of the sea. They woke up on a desert island, and after starting the process of fixing the boat, were met by strange gnomes.

David: Hello there

Strange Gnomes: Hello, we would like to eat you.

Okay, okay, I admit that the tonight I introduced my soon-to-be three year old daughter to cannibalism.

The cannibal gnomes chased David around until Kenny could construct a clever pull the rope, trip the cannibals, and dash away to safety gag. They fixed their boat and got home, where David and his wife were very happy to see each other again.

Maja immediately picked up that the cannibal gnomes were bad guys, but I was more impressed by the flurry of questions she asked afterwards:

"Do David and his wife have TV?"

"What movies do they own?"

"What stories do they tell each other?"

It seems like David the Gnome and his wife are becoming real, albeit short, people.

Now I just need to find a name for his wife

Introducing ...Princessess

We did have one skipped night with no stories, which would have been a welcome respite, if it weren't for the one-year old's desire to party rock into the wee hours of the morning.

Three Little Pigs appear appear to be SOP according to Maja. I can certainly do this now with my eyes closed, and my head on a pillow.

David was a bit harder. Nothing came to me during the day, so while I did the mandatory backstory, "David the Gnome lives with his wife in a tree in the woods, he has a squirrel as a friend....." I took the two major themes: David helps people, and Maja has been talking about (but not pretending to be) a princess.

David the Gnome was walking through the woods when he came upon a crying princess *sheer glee comes to Maja's face*. The princess' carriage had a broken wheel and they didn't have an extra one. David offered to take the princess home for dinner, and he would have his friend Kenny the Gnome take a look at the wheel and see if he could fix it.

David, David's wife (still no name) and the unnamed princess had a great time eating dinner, playing games, and having a sleepover. The next morning Kenny the Gnome had fixed the wheel, and the princess could go on her way, but not before giving an open invitation for David to visit her kingdom anytime he wanted.

More Pigs, a little Jack, and Pink Milk

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. This whole real life thing is getting in the way of being a productive dad. I didn't even remotely get the chance to clammor over boxes to get to the books I wanted.

Tonight was an excited little girl getting her pajamas on and hitting the bed with an excited, "Daddy, tell me about the wolf and the piggies..."

Of Three Little Pigs, this father has them squared away, at least the basic version. Maja particularly like when I hit the mattress when the Wolf is knocking on the pig's door.

I tried Jack and the Beanstalk, but Maja (a) didn't see anything wrong with eating the three magic beans and (b) she wanted another David the Gnome story.


For David, I recapped yesterday's story before I started the new one. I was impressed that she remembered David helped a squirrel that had a boo-boo on his leg. I also introduced the fox to the story. I don't believe Maja has ever seen a fox, so the best explanation I could give her was a sneaky dog. I'll find pictures tonight.

The fox visited David with a big problem at the farm. The cows were making pink milk! David jumped on the fox's back and rode off to the farm. Maja told me where to go on the farm, an after a short tour, David ended up in the barn. The cows didn't know what was going, much less that they were making pink milk! So David, hid in the barn until two people walked into the barn and mixed pink paint in the hay! Following Maja's lead, David yelled, "hey you guys that's not nice, " and the mysterious people ran away. The cows were safe, the milk was normal

*Not the best story I could tell. Our youngest had demanded pink milk from the store, and since my wife is a shopping pushover, we have a half gallon in the fridge. After some experiments, it appears that I'm the only person in the house who actually likes pink milk. After telling her that they mix pink paint to make pink milk, she may never try it again, which is okay in my book.*

When Silence ISN'T Golden

I've been doing this whole fatherhood thing now for two years, eight months, and nine days, and last night I finally panicked.

I've snatched up kids that have gone under in the tub, grabbed them as they've taken two steps into traffic, and swiped dangerous objects out their hands and mouths. I would call all those times moments of instinct, you just do what needs to be done, everyone is safe, and your heart is racing a bit faster than you like. I would hope that in a moment of true crisis, I could react the same way to ensure the safety of my family. Heck, I've watched my youngest daughter, in her first few weeks of life, breaths away from dying and I didn't panic, I couldn't panic for the sake of my wife.

But last night was full-blown five-alarm panic.

My eldest daughter, Maja, who has been around just as long as I've been a Dad, has slept in our bed since she was a year old. My wife and I were one of those couples that swore up and down that we would never share our bed with a child, but in a moment of exhaustion and desperation, our vows of independence were useless. Truth be told, with the exception of a few bouts of Wrestlemania, the arrangement isn't too bad. The occasional addition of our second child was the straw that broke the camel's back.

We've spent the last few weeks cleaning, repainting, and trying to set up our daughters' room. It hasn't been pleasant all the time, but with the wife coming back from Ikea with new pillows and bedclothes for Maja's bed, we were ready to push her out of our bed and into her own.

Maja is afraid of the dark, and of non-specific "scary monsters," so we kept the closet light on and double checked the spots she thought scary monsters might like to hide. Then, it was six or seven songs, as per our normal nighttime rituals and Maja passed out, and slept straight through the night.

*insert angellic chorus here*

Tonight was night two, and as I sang her song five (Fly Me to the Moon), five little words came out of her mouth that struck terror in my heart.

"Daddy , Tell me a story ..."

Don't get me wrong, I've lived my whole life just to be the story-telling Daddy of Awesome. It may be whole reason God placed me on this Earth. I love stories, storytelling, the theatrics of the whole art. I'll admit to 20+ years of Dungeons & Dragons playing, most of which were behind that flimsy cardboard screen as Dungeon/Game Master. I've had people give serious compliments to my storytelling style, as a gamer and in casual company, and when I meet someone whose vastly superior to me, I try to soak up any piece of wisdom or style I can.

But this is my little girl, asking her Daddy to tell her a bedtime story, like generation after generation had done before.

And I've got nothing...

I partially blame her love of the show Super Why! for my bardic brain fart. Despite covering so many nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and fables, the show butchers them so far, that I can barely remember the actual story. But I completely blame that fact that I thought I had a few more months before she would want this...

Eventually, I stumbled through The Three Little Pigs. Simple, basic, and I throw the fact that the wolf wants to eat the little pigs into the background. Doing in the style of the band Green Jello made her giggle with glee, and want to put the Big Bad Wolf in the corner for being naughty.

She wanted more, so she got a dry version of The Tortoise and the Hare, and when she asked for a third story, I told her it was the last one and what she wanted.

"A gnome story!"

A little background is necessary for this one. My other blog is Gaming With the Gnomies, which to the layman, covers D&D role-playing games, toy soldiers, and specifically a game called Gnome Wars. Oh yes, little inch-high garden gnomes with guns, hunks of cheese, and flamethrowers fighting across the battlefield, all well before Gnomeo and Juliet. I have hundreds of these little guys for games, and Maja has always been allowed to play with the painted ones.

Gnomes have been part of her life since day one, and it's been intentional. It's much easier to get your daughter to play a game of gnomes with dear old Dad, rather than some obscure skirmish during the Crimean War, and if she, her sister Amelia, and any future kids are willing to play with the crazy Old Man while they're teenagers or beyond, it's a coup for weird dads everywhere.

So anyway, gnomes. I told a delightful little story of David the Gnome, who healed a poor squirrel with a big boo-boo on his leg and they became good friends. Within five minutes of finishing the story, I got a final good night kiss and she's been out ever since.

Now that the panic has gone, I vow to never fall short again. Enter Operation: Tell Me Another Story. Tomorrow morning, I'm going through the boxes in the garage to get me back up to speed. Aesop, Mother Goose, Children's Bible Stories, and a little refresher on David the Gnome. David's not just going to be the books and TV series, he's going to be my chronicle story, connecting to all the stories my daughter loves, without butchering the originals. I'll go into more detail about that as it develops.

It could be worse, she's not asking for the keys to the car yet.