When I was a wee lass, my dad was a tough and authoritarian kind of guy… definitely not someone you’d think of as having a soft and sentimental side.  In contrast with his strong qualities, he was also a fabulous storyteller (though he would never admit it himself).  Most nights when I was very young, he would regale me with stories of Ellie the Elephant.  Ellie had lots of jungle friends and was always having fine adventures or getting into and out of trouble.  I suspect she was loosely based on one young Miss Jacks.

He’d weave each story until my eyelids were heavy or I was drifting off to sleep, and as a result my childhood dreams were filled with the elaborate plots that my dad would construct.  There was always a hidden nugget of morality or good manners in each story for me to think about as well. I guess those tales had a profound impact on me, because I always knew that when my girls were old enough that I’d dust off the same stories, hoping that they’d be just as magical now as they were in the early 1970’s.

Lately, Little Jacks has begun telling fanciful stories of her own about chickens and kitties riding a bus or snakes and bugs playing in the grass.  She seems to be showing signs that she’s ready for Ellie!

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In transitioning Little Jacks to her toddler bed, I knew that I had to do something special to make her want to stay and sleep in her bed.  Maybe Ellie could help us.  To take a step back for a second, we bought Little Jacks a toddler floor bed at about 18 months old, in the hope that she’d transition easily to it before her sister was born.  Well, that didn’t even come close to happening.   She wasn’t ready and we didn’t want to push it.  Co-sleeping continued to seem like the best option during that time of transition.  Then, right after Jack Jack’s birth, there was so much upheaval for Little Jacks that we didn’t dare try anything new.  Consistency was key, and the last thing I wanted was for LJ to feel like she’d truly been replaced.

We’ve had so many sleep successes lately with LJ’s naps at home and at school, and with Jack Jack only waking once each night, that we decided to press our luck and transition from our bed to the floor bed at 26 months of age.  We started talking about it a few days before we tried it, comparing her floor bed to the nap cots at Montessori and talking about how big girls sleep in “own bed.”   She seemed to accept this logic, so we broke out the bed and put her “special” sheets on it and put all of her “friends”– Lala kitty, Gaku, and Maisie Doll — in the bed.  We knew she’d never stay in bed if she was there by herself, so I laid down with her that first night.


Ellie the Elephant (my dad bought Ellie for LJ when he first met her!), Maisie Doll, and Lala Kitty (in a BumGenius 3.0) all patiently waiting for LJ to join them back on the floor bed when she is ready.  Gaku must have gone for a walk at the time this picture was taken, but she is very cute too!

At first she was so intrigued by having her own space that she arranged and rearranged her animals and water bottle about 30 times, then she started trying to wander away.  It was time to engage her in a story.  I wasn’t even sure if I could pull off an Ellie story, and I teared up thinking of all the wonderful memories I had of my dad telling them to me on those nights long ago.  Each story was always so elaborate and lush and I was worried that I wouldn’t live up to my dad’s skill.  I gave it a go anyway. I told a tale of how Ellie wandered away from her home at the big watering hole at the bend in the river to chase a butterfly.  She became hopelessly lost until she stumbled upon a chameleon who helped her find her way home.  Ultimately, she and the chameleon became such good friends during their journey that he relocated to the big watering hole at the bend in the river to be close to Ellie and her family.

What do you know, but by the end of the story Little Jacks was drowsy.  As soon as I stopped talking, she fell asleep clutching Lala kitty… AND(!) she stayed asleep for the rest of the night.  Mr. Jacks and I were so beside ourselves that we decided to celebrate by watching some episodes of Weeds and promptly fell asleep before a single episode finished!  We are so wild and interesting!

And so started the pattern for the next few days.  I’d create an Ellie story, LJ would become drowsy, and once I ended the story she’d fall asleep (and stay asleep).  Sounds like a fairytale ending right?

Well, not so fast!

Our failure was a product of our own success.  One night last weekend I told a tale of how the savannah elephant family visited the desert elephants of Namibia.  I was so proud of myself for trying to inject some biology and sociology into the story… I talked about how life was hard for the desert elephants and how they triumphed despite their challenges.  I ended with a heart-wrenching goodbye between the elephant families.  LJ fell asleep just as she had on the prior nights and all was right with the human world… that is, until she woke up after having had her first ever nightmare.  She cried for over an hour and was completely inconsolable.  LJ was frantic that I was going to go away from her.

Was it the elephants saying goodbye that prompted the nightmare?  I couldn’t say for sure, but it seemed that way.  The whole night was brutal, though.  She cried off and on for hours, begging me to hold her and not let go. “Hold me mama, don’t go mama!”

Since the night of the horrible nightmare, LJ hasn’t wanted to sleep on her own bed again.  She’ll lay down in her bed for a little while and then want to get up and come to our bed.  She’s still interested in what the elephants might be up to, but I’ll only tell the stories if she’s in her bed… so we haven’t gotten to share a new one yet.  But rest assured that I’m thinking up some plot lines for the next opportunity… and this time with very peaceful themes!

I look forward to telling more Ellie stories to my girls and I hope they treasure them the way I do.  Do you have a treasured childhood tradition that you’ve adapted for your family?