story

Minka

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Minka
Minka

Over dinner, when Kit is not yet home from the hospital, Claire and I often find ourselves playing different fictional characters that we just make up as we eat.  Molly does not really join in, but she does seem to enjoy the amateur performance.

Our favorite characters recently are a father (me) with a heavy Russian accent.  I am simply known as “Papa”.  I speak of my time back in fatherland Russia, where “if you want to eat, you do not go to grocery store.  No.  You chase down dinner and eat it.  Or maybe if you’re not so fast, it eat you.”  I have no idea where this comes from.

I tend to carry on about dinner.  “I work and work and make good dinner, and you turn up nose!”

Cubbie
Cubbie

Claire is Minka.   Minka is my daughter, but she is not Russian.  By her accent, she seems to be from South America or maybe Southern Asia.  She grew up in America and is spoiled by things like grocery stores and chicken nuggets.  Something is not quite right with Minka, who is afraid of televisions, iPads, or really anything electronic.  And she gets confused by forks and spoons.

Minka loves her dog, Cubbie (Muffin).  I adopted Cubbie back in the fatherland, where she helped me survive on the tundra by hunting down dinner with me every night.  Cubbie joined me on my trek to America and is always kind and patient with Minka.

Molly is Minka’s little sister.  We tried to include Molly in this story, but she does not want to join in.  We tried to name her Pepe, but she insisted that she is Molly.  Molly is “normal American kid who loves chicken nuggets and television”.

We’re not sure what happened to Minka’s mom.  She may be back in Russia fighting her way through the frozen tundra.  Or maybe she’s stuck at the hospital.  We’re not sure which is worse.

A Butterfly Christmas

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Claire dreamed up this story for her grandparents as part of Christmas 2010…

A Butterfly Christmas

by Claire M

Once there was a large oak tree with a hummingbird in it.  There was one pink butterfly who flew past the hummingbird. And then the butterfly saw the hummingbird and said, “Will you please help me get around this oak tree because there are many hills around it?  Will you help me find somebody strong to cut down this oak tree?”  The hummingbird nodded.

Then a purple butterfly flew past the pink one.  And the purple butterfly said, “May I please fly past you so I can get the cherries in the large oak tree for my gramma?”  And the pink butterfly said, “I’m so sorry, but I am stuck between the hills and the oak tree and am in a miserable maze.  I cannot let you through.”

And then a giant grumpy two-headed troll stomped past the butterflies!

And then a blue butterfly flew past the purple butterfly and said, “May I please get past you?”  The pink butterfly said, “Well, I guess it’s time to go to my house.”  And the purple one said, “My house!”  And the blue one said, “My house!”  And then the pink and blue butterflies agreed to go to the purple butterfly’s house for Christmas because the other two were grandparents, and she was the youngest. 

At the purple one’s house, they sang Christmas carols and had cookies and Dr. Pepper and watched their favorite DVD and exchanged presents and had a great time.

Star Wars, the fairy tale

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Claire has never seen Star Wars, not even a little bit of it. But she is quite curious about it because most of the boys in her class play Star Wars and talk about it a lot. Yes, over 30 years after the original movie came out, it is still the king of boys’ playtime.

Not having seen it, Claire is trying to piece together the world of Star Wars from little tidbits of information here and there. She doesn’t even know what most of the characters look like. For a while she would ask me basic questions. Is Star Wars real? Is Darth Vader a bad guy? What is Chewbacca exactly? All she knew about Chewbacca was that he was furry and could be described as a “waking carpet”. I had to pull up a picture of Yoda on the computer because Claire did not really understand my description of him. I told Claire that Yoda was green, about her own size, 1000 years old, wrinkly, and he talked kind of backwards. Seriously, what’s so confusing about that?
Tonight during bath time, Claire made up her own saga — fairy tale, actually — of Star Wars. I was Luke Skywalker, and she was my kid. She talked really weird, not English or anything, and so did I. Darth Vader was coming to get us. Claire had magic powers and could turn herself into any princess or fairy except Princess Leia. When Darth Vader got close, Claire turned herself into a fairy, and she offered to turn me into any fairy I wanted. I just said, “Okay, uh, thanks.” We both used our fairy powers to float up into the sky where Darth Vader could not get us. When we went into her bedroom after getting her dressed, she pointed down at the floor and said Darth Vader was down there. She stuck her finger on the floor and said, “Ouch! He bit my finger!” When I walked across the room to hug her, she said, “You’re stepping on Darth Vader!” I could not tell if she was happy or upset about that.
Then Kit came to read Claire her bedtime story, and I went shopping at Target. There, passing the toy department, I saw countless Star Wars toys lining aisles. I almost — but did not — buy something for Claire to help her straighten out her Star Wars story.

A Cat Ran on the Sidewalk

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One of the Halloween activities in Claire’s class this year was for each kid to make up a Halloween story on their own.  The teachers transcribed the stories, printed and laminated them, and posted them on the wall for everyone to read.  Claire’s read as follows:

A cat ran on the sidewalk.  The doggie got the cat.  The mommy forgot her purse.  The little lady laughed.  The little lady wore a hat.  She also had thousands and thousands of coins.

Most of the other kids’ stories were pretty nice too.  A couple were scarcely one sentence long.  And one or two were just descriptions of Star Wars battles that had nothing to do with Halloween.