Tonight when we were coming home from Grandma Gibby’s house, we were playing games made up by a 5-year-old. (Audrey said, “Let’s play a game called, ‘Let’s see if you can sing a song that you know’. How you play is, you sing a song that you know.”)

When we got to the game called “Tell a story” (“How do you play it?” Sarah wondered aloud, and we laughed), Audrey told one about a queen and king who had a 5-year-old named Audrey and a baby named Claire and a 2-year-old named Nathan.  They lived in a royal palace and had lots of servants. One day they took a walk and found some more servants who didn’t have anywhere to live, so they hired them.  The end.

Sarah told an engaging story about a little dragon who wanted to breathe fire like his big brother, but no matter how hard he huffed and puffed, he just got a little bit of smoke.  Audrey was INTO this story, so much so that she started coming up with solutions for the little dragon’s problem.  Sarah whispered to me, “Who’s telling this story?”

When it was my turn, I came up with a highly inventive tale that went something like this: “Once there was a little boy named Randy who loved to play with his cowboy doll named Sheriff Moody.  [Moody rhymes with “goody” and “hoodie” in this story.]  Randy had a lot of toys that he liked to play with, but Sheriff Moody was his favorite.”

“Then Randy had a birthday, and all the toys were afraid that he would get a toy that was cooler than they were and he wouldn’t play with them anymore.  Randy’s mom gave him a spaceman toy called… Muzz Gightlear.  Randy thought Muzz Gightlear was really cool.”

At this point, Nathan interjected, “An’ it was Buzz!”  We asked Audrey if she knew that I was really talking about Andy and Woody and Buzz Lightyear and she said no, but Nathan recognized my thinly veiled cribbing of the plot of Disney-Pixar’s beloved 1995 hit, Toy Story.  Pretty good for a kid who’s not yet three.