Isaac and the New Prius

This week Craig came home with a toy Prius for Isaac. It's metal, about five inches long, and metallic silver. Isaac was really excited. He had already been pretending his toy Volkswagen beetle was a Prius, but, as Craig suspected, it was so much better to have the real thing.

(The Prius was one of the first cars Isaac could identify, probably in part because my parents drive one, but also because Toyota really succeeded in making the design distinctive. The other two cars Isaac could identify early on were Jeeps and Hummers.)

So at bedtime on the day that Isaac got the Prius, I decided to tell him a story about the car while I sat by his bed and waited for him to get sleepy. Usually I sing him a song while I wait for him to relax and lie still, but I had never told him a story before.

The story began, "Once there was a little boy named Isaac, and one day his Daddy stopped on his way home from work and bought him a brand new Prius. It was silver and sparkly and very similar to Oma and Opa's Prius. Isaac decided to drive somewhere interesting, so he climbed into the driver's seat and off he went."

Isaac was attentive from the moment I began to talk. In order to make him sleepy, I made the story as safe and boring as possible, full of mundane details like looking for parking, getting gas, and the names of the streets. Finally he was so quiet that I assumed he must have fallen asleep. But as soon as I ended the story with the Prius's arrival at Oma and Opa's house, Isaac said, "Sing it again." I explained that it was a story, not a song, and that one tells a story. He didn't care about semantics at that point. "Sing more about Isaac and the new Prius," he demanded.

I told the story again, this time having Isaac drive the Prius to a different destination, and as soon as it ended Isaac said, "Again." He was wide awake and totally fascinated. It became clear to me that I had made a massive error in judgment.

Craig finally had to come in and rock Isaac to sleep that night, because the kid wouldn't stop asking me to tell him "about Isaac and the new Prius." It hasn't been a problem since then, because I've instituted a rigid moratorium: absolutely no stories about the Prius at naptime or bedtime. But I've told the story at many, many other times throughout the day.

It's still pretty fun, especially now that I realize that these toddler enthusiasms come and go, and I'm not at all afraid that I'll be telling this same story for the next six months. Isaac has learned that I'm telling a story, rather than singing a song -- I guess he thought stories only came from books. It's also teaching him how to tell a story, which is cool, although he has very little narrative ability, and events tend to happen over and over again, as well as out of order.

I especially like to ask Isaac where he wants to drive in the story. Often he says he wants to drive someplace we've just been in real life -- the library, the cafe, the garden store. A trip to Oma and Opa's is still his favorite, though. And one time Craig had the good idea to have the destination be the fair.