Phaedra’s Narrations

I’ve been trying to help the kids keep in touch with people by letting them write letters. Phaedra mostly writes her name, sometimes a few words (which she has me recite how to spell, letter by letter, and sometimes stopping to show her how to write some of the letters—that gets old fast), and a picture. The pictures might be more fun for me than for the recipient, because each picture is a story that she narrates from the moment her pencil starts drawing.

Last week, she sent a letter to Sam, her cousin. She told me the whole story as she made the drawing, and I hoped I would remember it to write some of it down as an explanation to send along with the letter. When I realized there she was far past the amount of information I was going to be able to remember, I took a video of her telling about it. I wish I had taken a video from the start.

This is the picture she was narrating:

And this is some of what she said about it:

Today, she was writing a letter to Aunt Kathleen. I was smart this time, and from the beginning, I started jotting down what she said as she drew. I hope Aunt Kathleen won’t mind if I share.

This is the picture she was drawing while she was talking:
And here is almost exactly what she said:

Here’s Aunt Kathleen (left). She’s just a little girl, so she’s pulling her hair.
This is me, and I’m a teensy, weensy baby.
And this is a humongo cloud. And it’s raining from it. These lines are the rain. It’s really raining really hard.
And they’re both wearing sweat shirts.
And then, a line inside the cloud and another and another . . .
And then it does a humongo flash, and the baby reaches out her tiny arm to touch it and gets hurt.
Check mark.
Then more rain (pause) fell onto Aunt Kathleen.
And I had people on my shoulders. The fire guy was saying, “Cry baby, cry baby, cry baby, cry baby . . . (etc.)”
And the angel was saying, “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop . . . (etc.)” (We’ve been watching The Emperor’s New Groove lately, and I think Phae likes the angel/devil that appear on Kronk’s shoulders.)
Aunt Kathleen’s foot went down in a big circle and her foot got dark. Then her other foot.

I couldn’t keep up anymore after that. She just kept on babbling. I asked her if she wanted to tell me some of the story in a video, but I think she’s much more aware of the camera in this one:

In unrelated news, the highlight of Grant and my day today was that we found a store that is Safeway under a different name. And it’s the only place in town that we have found so far that had 2lb bricks of medium cheddar cheese. Everywhere else, you have to buy it in 1lb bricks, and they cost an arm and a leg. Most places we’ve seen have had 2lbs of cheese for 8-9 dollars! This place, Dominick's (Safeway), had the 2lb bricks for $5. Hallelujah, we found cheap cheese!!! It’s also the first place where we’ve found Asiago cheese (not shredded, but hey, we’ll take what we can get). Guess who’s having omelets for breakfast tomorrow morning.

We’re still stumped for English muffins, which are pretty much a breakfast staple for us. All the places we’ve looked have them in little packs of 6 muffins for almost $3, and there’s no way I’m paying that price for a pack that will be gone after one morning.