Storytellers

It's hard to believe Natalia is already four weeks old, especially since we are still listening to Leon process her birth.  When Ree was about this age, she told the same two stories over and over again.  Like his sis, Leon is obsessed with telling a handful of stories, and on a daily basis, we get to hear about the night of Natalia's birth.

It's a long story in itself, but on the night Natalia was born, a nurse insisted I give Natalia a mixture of formula and glucose.  Because Natalia was a breastfed baby (I actually had to cut her off in the middle of a feeding to give her the silly stuff), they let me feed her with a syringe rather than a bottle.  Leon came over while I was feeding her, his eyes grew wide, and he excitedly determined that I was giving her medicine.  When they need it, I still give the kids infant ibuprofen using a dropper, and this was something about a new baby that Leon understood and had recently experienced himself.

For several weeks, Leon told the story the same way.  "Doctor give baby medicine.  Mmm...delicious!"  (The kids' medicine is fruit flavored.)  He told the story so many times that one night at a bedtime, a very sleepy Michael looked up and added the "Mmm...delicious!" part.  They say kids don't understand sarcasm until around the age of 7, but I swear Micheal's voice was dripping with it.  You could tell Michael really wanted to say, "Just shut up and go to sleep already!"

Jeff and I tried to talk to Leon about all the other things that happened at the hospital, not to mention all the other aspects of life with a new baby, but the story remained the same.  Finally, one day last week, the story expanded.  "Doctor give baby medicine.  Mmm...delicous!"  The he sadly added, "Bye, Mom!  Bye, Baby!"  I felt like a psychologist watching a patient have a break through.  We were getting somewhere!  The emotional part of the story.  He didn't like leaving us there!

Since that night he has continued adding on to his story, adding a new incident every day or two.  Tonight he even added a beginning.  Currently, the entire story (with translation):

Go sleep.  Daddy wake up. Go hospital.  (We went to sleep, then Daddy woke us up and we went to the hospital.)
Doctor give baby medicine.  (The doctor gave the baby medicine.)
Mommy help medicine. (Mommy helped to give the baby medicine.)
Leon help medicine. (Leon helped to give the baby medicine.)
Watch TV! (Ree, Leon, and Michael got to watch kids' shows on TV.)
Mommy bracelet. (The nurses put a bracelet on Mommy.)
Daddy bracelet. (The nurses put a bracelet on Daddy.)
TV over. (The TV show we were watching ended.)
Bye, Mom! (We had to say goodbye to Mom.)
Bye, Baby! (We had to say goodbye to the new baby.)

I'm sure the story will continue to grow.  Most amazingly, any details he adds are accurate.  Then again, this is the kid who sits down at bedtime each night and tells me EVERYTHING about the day, down to who ate what at every meal.  I also realized tonight that Leon's processing isn't just helping him.  As I tucked Ree in, she then started talking about her experience, with the hard part for her being the getting out of bed and into the car in the middle of the night.  She was smiling and laughing as she told me how confused she was that night.  I am glad she's at the point where she can remember it fondly, even if it took hearing Leon's story a few hundred times to get her there.