My nephew Cooper is a real treat. Among other things, he loves to tell jokes, draw and act out stories. Tonight he prepared a treat for me and my family that was overlooked, a diamond lost in the rough.
It all started (from our perspective) after supper. Cooper comes up to me and gives me a faux newspaper detailing the story of the “Bad Boy.” The bad boy was wanted for murder, [something that I forget], and stealing soda. We congratulated him on his drawing and went back to the remainder of our meals. This was a mistake on our part…
The Newspaper detailing the story of the Bad Boy.
I had unintentionally acquired a migraine earlier in the afternoon and was shaking off it and a 1.5 hour nap during supper. I laid down on the couch in the living room after supper and shielded my eyes from the penetrating pain of the track lights. While I was straddling dreamtime and the land of the living, Cooper comes up to me and tells me there are footprints in the kitchen next to the soda machine.
Dazed and confused as I was, I gave a half hearted attempt at being interested in his tellings and goings. I asked him whose footprints they were and slipped back into slumber…
A few minutes later, as Cooper was being bidden to bedtime, he pops back upstairs and gives me a confession note, one that implicated my brother Grant in the soda theft. It was at this time that I thought that he had concocted a neat little game that he was wanting us to play. However, Cooper had to go to bed at this point and that was the end of it.
When is mother Holly came up stair from putting him down, she told us of Cooper’s Confession. While she was laying him down, Cooper told her that it was actually him that stole all the soda. I guess he had worked all afternoon and evening going back and forth between the upstairs stash of soda for the weekend and a minifridge downstairs, hiding cans of soda in his pants, setting the stage for a crime to be solved by his family. Then, he drafted the faux newspaper, footprints, and Grant’s confession note. We, his family, were supposed to notice the thievery, find Grant guilty, then investigate the footprints, and ultimately discover that it was really Cooper who was the thief!
The vault! Cooper snuck all all of these cans out without anyone noticing!
What a creative interactive story drummed up by a seven year old! One that ultimately went ignored by his closest of kin. He wanted us to join him, he wanted to tell us a story of his own creation… and we failed him.
I could make this into a moral story and even a religious one. But for now I just wanna highlight his creativity.
