Watching My Son Grow: Story and Narrative

A delightful thing has happened in the last few months: Rowan has both become a storyteller and also now appreciates a good story. He is only 17 months old and has a limited vocabulary (of words we understand, anyway!), so his stories consist of dogs, birds, balls, bubbles, houses, food, juice, water, going to sleep, and milk. But what an extraordinary thing! I am blown away by the intellectual connections he is making and the knowledge he is amassing.

Last month, when putting my son to bed, I decided to tell him a story of my own making. Little did I know then that the story would be asked for again and again and become his favorite, one that he also asks his daddy to tell. The story, which has several variations, is called "The House of Balls" and it is all about a special house, just for Rowan, that has unlimited balls of every color, pattern and size. (FYI, balls are Rowan's favorite toy- hands down.)

Each room has a different theme: one is a huge ball pit, another is a dance room with many many disco balls on the ceiling. The green room has green balls, the red room has red and so on. The roof outside has a bubble machine that blows bubbles into the yard 24/7, and has dogs that love to play fetch. He has a book room where someone is always available to tell him a story.

To amuse myself, I placed a bowling alley in the basement, croquet, petanque, and bocci ball courts in the yard.  (He has no idea what these things are- perhaps he will love them later.) His favorite part of the story is where he goes outside to the dog run and throws the ball for the dog, who fetches and drops the ball at his feet, so he can throw it again. At specific words he does sign: "dog", "ball", and he even points to his feet! It is freaking adorable. At bedtime, I'll tell him to lay his head on the pillow so he can have a story, which he does eagerly. Then he signs "please" and "ball"- meaning, "Please tell me about the House of Balls".

He also loves to tell stories, to himself and to us. He narrates what just happened to us. If he pulls out his scooter and it falls over, he comes over and babbles at us, interspersed with actual words and signs until we decipher out loud what he is telling us: "Yes, I saw that your scooter fell over. Can you pick it up? Do you want help?" But usually he is not requesting help at all- he is just sharing his experiences with us the best he can. He is more than pleased when we tell him in full sentences what happened and show him that we understand.

I have also caught him using his toys to act out scenarios (feeding his ball popper toy, making Puck his doll talk, or talking in babble to his worm or fox). He often will "read" books to himself, pointing at the pictures and narrating them with babble. His imagination is firing on all cylinders and I wish I knew what was going on in there!

I am looking forward to him learning new sounds and words and signs so we are better able to communicate and tell stories to one another. Magically, this is super important. I am teaching him that there is no objectivity, no Truth with a capital T. I am teaching that all of life is story, and he has his versions and others have theirs. All have value. No one's story is more important than his, and vice versa. He is a note in the amazing, multi-textured song of creation.