Preschool Storytelling

So Ian has been dictating a story to me all day that I thought I would share with you. I keep asking him if he's almost done and he keeps saying no, so I'm putting a stop to it for the night, but I wanted to type up what we have so far. So I present to you:

The Kittycoppers, The Police, And The Superhero Called Megapoo

By Ian Reed

Once upon a time there was Mousecutter and Stingraysharp. His boss was named Kittynail. His nails could stretch to 140 pounds in a row. And then they had to fight a competition. So Kittynail sent his couplers to win the competition. And then he got the magic potion as a prize inside a magic box. 

And then he used a laser and made him into Antman. Then one time he made a robot and used it to capture a wild, big, shark fish to make into one of their couplers. And Kittynail said, "I need all the creatures I like, reptiles with sharp teeth, and send them to my lab."

They wanted to put the robot mask on the reptiles to make a shark. Then Kittynail sent another coupler, called Stingraysharp to cut the grass short to mix all the animals.

So Kittynail said, "We're going to travel in this huge, flying, mechanical box to see this famous alligator who swam around catching everything it could find. It even jumped on land and catched a grasshopper. I want to catch a grasshopper and make it into one of us. And I want to catch the famous alligator too, and mix it together- half grasshopper and half alligator." 

So they caught all the animals on sea and land to make a huge monster. It was going well but then they fell in the water so they started looking in the sea for animals. Then they went out.

Kittynail said, "Let's swim and find the golden reptile, made of gold, and it can go on land, even in dirt, and it can go 13,16,17 miles of hour." 

Stingraysharp said, "I'm going to cut all the plants we're going to eat." And then he turned into a stingray and then back into himself. He can cut with his fins and turn into anything in the sea. So he cut until he found a magic box, full of magic diamonds, and gold, and magic potions that would make him strong. Kittynail wanted some too and Mousecutter. Stingraysharp gave some of the potions and diamonds, but he made more potions and said, "Let's take all the water around the city."

Kittynail said, "Let's go so we can swim in the deep blue sea!" So he sent one of his couplers to find a magic gun from a sea man who was really a sea monster.

The gun was called Gapperairy, so the monster turned into a shark and left his cave to look for his gun. It shot out water with magic stuff in it. So the sea monster sent one of his goblin monsters to catch other monsters.

Kittynail said, "Let's use all our couplers we made to make an army to attack the sea monster."

And the sea monster said, "I will use my slave army to battle Kittynail and all his couplers to get all the stuff!"

And they said, "Charge!"

And they fought with guns, swords, and electric reptiles that are in the sea and stings, a sea snake! And it turned into a snake sword!

(To be continued...)

So that's all we have for now. I personally am eager to see how the battle turns out and I'm really curious how Megapoo will factor into all this.

Soothing Imagery

As most of you know by now, recently I had my first full-blown panic attack. To those of you who have suffered with these over the years and continue to suffer from them, my heart goes out to you. It was probably the scariest thing I've ever experienced and I spent the next few weeks afterward feeling extremely anxious and fearful that I would have another attack. Every little thing spooked me, anything that reminded me of the experience of my attack would start make me feel worried that another one was starting. I will still occasionally have a sudden shock hit me and I'll feel a sharp chest pain, but it's nothing like it was a few weeks ago. 

Frankly I don't feel like my problem is bad enough to require medication (at least I hope not, since taking medication is another thing that I'm anxious about) especially since I've been learning some coping techniques that are helping calm my body down when it begins having physical symptoms of anxiety. And that's what brings me to my topic today.

I've begun a program that was recommended to me by my acupuncturist to help teach me skills to deal with my anxiety and in this week's lesson, one of the action assignments was to choose several beautiful, detailed, post cards or greeting cards. If I begin to feel frazzled or frantic about something, I should sit down somewhere comfortable and look at my images, but not just a cursory glance, I'm supposed to focus in on them, particularly the details. It's recommended I do this several times a week and then take notice of how my body feels after about ten minutes of doing this. 

I haven't tried this yet, and in fact when I went to the mall today and looked for post cards, all I found were tacky Florida ones. So this afternoon I spent some time finding imagery that I can hopefully put on my phone that way I can carry it with me. I wanted to share a few of my favorites though, and encourage those of you who are so inclined, to find and share some of what you find personally soothing or calming to look at. 

I'd also like to note that I don't intend to make this kind of thing the focus of this blog. I'm actually keeping a journal now to record details of my anxiety attacks and how I'm feeling and what kinds of thoughts I'm having, but something like this I feel could be beneficial for just about anyone, and unfortunately this is part of my life now, so it was bound to come up eventually. 

So anyway, now on to the pretties!

These two I especially love because this is a location I've actually been to. When I was 17 I was kindly invited to join friends of mine on an RV camping trip through Yellowstone National Park. On the way back to Colorado we drove through Jackson Hole, WY and saw the Grand Tetons. If it wasn't for the expense and me being unsure of how I'd handle a Wyoming winter, I swear I'd move there in a heartbeat. The beauty is incredible and I felt so happy there. I wish we could have spent more time there but we couldn't. It's a dream of mine to return there one day, and in the meantime I can look at these beautiful pictures. 

There's lots of different types of plants and colors and textures going on in this picture. It has a calming element but still has a lot of details to focus on. 

Waterfalls for me personally are tricky. I love them. BUT in terms of soothing imagery, if I look at a waterfall with an especially heavy flow or if it's very tall or the angle of the picture is taken from the edge where the water goes over, it's more likely to induce stressful feelings. It's still beautiful but it's a dangerous feeling beauty. So most waterfalls that I would consider soothing are very short in height and light on flow. 

This picture I think is one of my favorites. It's got a lovely waterfall in the background and then in the foreground are all these gnarly roots to look at. There's a lot to focus your eye and mind on when you look at something like that. So anyway, those were a sampling of what I found, I look forward to seeing what you guys find!