To Tell a Tale: Rory’s Story Cubes

We are a family in love with stories.

We tell them, we read them, and as this blog attests we often write them down and share them in some form or another with total strangers. Adrienne and I have been readers our whole lives. We even turned to stories, in the form of Barbara Lehman’s wonderfully illustrated but wordless books, to help Ranger learn to better express himself as he described the details of the quirky scenes in Lehman’s illustrations.

For the past year or so, as Ranger has passed from a toddler to a preschooler, he and I have begun to play “story games” to pass the time. While we’re waiting in line somewhere or when car trips are lasting longer than either of our patience, I’ll start asking Ranger semi-directed questions similar to what we’ve practiced with Lehman’s books to fill out the details of a free form story. I might ask, “Who is in the story?” or “What should our story be about?” and as Ranger fills in the details, we begin to explore these free form worlds that we create together. It has become such a part of our life, that Ranger will often interject into any long silence, “Let’s make up a story!”

It’s tremendously fun and puts our creativity through the paces. As I hadn’t done a lot of this sort of thing for a long time, I was rusty at first, but persistence has paid off. What was difficult and awkward at first, is now second nature to us both. We roll with any suggestion and seem to be able to incorporate most any idea into at least a semi-recognizable narrative.

This sort of thing was easier when I was younger. As a young geek child of the 70’s and 80’s, I came of age slinging polyhedral dice while playing role playing games ( or RPGs). My friends and I imagined adventures in underground lairs filled with traps and monsters, smashing cars into each other, going insane from viewing nameless horrors, and hiding out from “The Computer” during endless story telling sessions of Dungeons and Dragons, the Palladium Role Playing Game, Car Wars, Call of Cthulhu, and Paranoia. These “games” were exercises in imagination and storytelling more than winning some sterile objective. I think they helped my writing, encouraged my reading, exercised my imagination and generally improved my overall communication skills.

Ranger’s a little too young for these types of games but luckily there are other games and play activities that are springing up that we happen to really enjoy and that accentuate the story play in which we already engage. One of those play/game activities is Rory’s Story Cubes. Published by Gamewright, Rory’s Story Cubes are nine six sided dice that come in a sturdy magnetically fastened box. Each white dice has a unique black doodle or pictogram on each of its six faces. The pictograms include doodles of a water fountain, a turtle, a bumble bee, a bolt of lighting, a castle keep, fire, and a shooting star. If you do the math, there are 54 images across the die faces. That’s quite a lot of potential story inspiration when you consider all the possible combinations.

The simple idea of Rory’s Story Cubes, is to take some or all of the dice and roll them, and then work alone or together to make up a story that includes elements from all of the face up pictograms. That’s it. It’s a simple activity and, while there are suggested ways to use the cubes, the included booklet also encourages you to use them in any way that inspires fun and creativity. Since there’s no “right” way to do it, kids are free to let their imaginations wonder unhindered by any “correct” interpretation of the images that  they randomly encounter from any particular roll. For instance, one doodle is of an Egyptian scarab as you might find on a pyramid burial chamber wall painting or depicted in an ancient Egyptian cartouche, but Ranger usually incorporates it into his stories as a generic “bug” or a slightly more specific “beetle”.

Some people may be turned off by the randomness of the activity, but I’ve found the activity of making a story (and perhaps not even a good story) from the randomly occurring images to not only be mentally challenging but also very inspirational. I have imagined seeing them being used by writers as a warm up exercise or a way to work through writer’s block. Perhaps teachers could use them in creating writing or speaking prompts for their students. I can just hear high school speech students groaning at the idea of giving a recitation of an extemporaneous story inspired by the fateful roll of the cubes.

I know from experience that the exercise of using the cubes and pushing ourselves to work within their imaginative constraints has broadened Ranger and my general story telling and creation abilities. He’s become surprisingly good at taking a random word or phrase that we may come across and turn it into wonderful little tales. He’s one heck of a storyteller these days. As an example of the types of stories that he now come up with on his own after a couple of months of playing with the cubes, this is my favorite story that he created after I tossed out the phrase “octopus soup” to him in car trip a couple of months back.


Octopus Soup
------------------

Once upon a time, there was octopus soup sitting in a cup on a table. A little girl sitting at the table wanted to try it.

She took a sip and it was wet... and slippery... and yucky. It made her feel dizzy. Then she wobbled off her chair and fell on the floor.

All of the sudden, she turned into an octopus.

When her mommy came into the room, she yelled "Oh no! There's an octopus in my house!"

She picked up the octopus right away and rushed it over to the aquarium and said, "Here. You take it."

When she got home, she couldn't find her daughter and figured out that the octopus was her little girl. So she went back to the aquarium and said, "You have to give me back that octopus! It's really my daughter."

The man at the aquarium said, "Oh good. The octopus turned back into a girl after you left. Here you go... She's a little wet."

When they got back home, the little girl said "I'll just have a peanut butter sandwich."
--------

The box can double as a rolling tray.

Making up stories with anyone, but especially with little kids, is a lot of fun and Rory’s Story Cubes definitely greases the imagination in pursuit of that goal. This simple, portable activity is sure to be a lot of fun for any family, though I wouldn't limit it to just families or kids. I can see it as a great party activity for adults, an icebreaker activity for gatherings, or an improv exercise. It’s a wonderful game to play that we highly recommend. Also, for those that are interested, there’s an iPhone App of the cubes, but there is a visceral thrill in rolling actual dice that is really part of the fun of the whole process. The retail price for the physical Rory's Story Cubes game is $12.99 and comes in a sturdy portable box that is slightly larger than a deck of playing cards.


We’re curious what type of stories that you’d come up with using a roll of Rory’s Story Cubes. Given the rolls in the pictures above, what does your mind come up with? Post them to the comments below.

***Baby Toolkit the sleeper hit blog on a short stretch of a quiet street in Southern Indiana- unless of course one of our neighbors has started a blog (like the clown family down the street- amazingly not a joke). We received a review copy of Rory's Story Cubes from Gamewright. We're Amazon affiliates, so a small portion of purchases made through the Amazon links on the site comes back to us and we use it to pay for connectivity or the downpayment on a Baby Toolkit corporate jet (thanks!).

[Note from Adrienne: Jim's new blog at storiedadventures.blogspot.com hosts even more gaming content.]

Ring Around the Sippy: A Clean Fridge Hack

Scout is a milk junkie.  The child's unceasing demand for moo juice means her cup is in and out of the fridge all day long.  The refrigerator quickly starts looking worse for the wear as the grubby cup leaves rings and drops toddler cruft on the glass shelves.  Half full cups vanish into the no man's land of other perishables, not to be recovered until a scarcity of cups inspires a search party.  With organic milk at $5.99 a gallon, this disappearing act can be expensive.

When the ghostly Rorschach of milk rings finally spelled out "wash me," I launched a full-fridge Silkwood scrubdown.  The fridge gleamed as I went to return the slightly sticky sippy.  Would this cleanliness unravel faster than a celebrity marriage?  I couldn't bear the thought.

I grabbed a clean cottage cheese tub lid from the cabinet and we instituted the first Jones' fridge coaster.  What I thought would only prevent cup rings and grubbiness ended up giving us a single location for partial cups.  Far less milk goes to waste now, and we've vanquished the mystery cups lurking in the fridge's dark corners.

We recently added a second lid for baby bottles and breast milk bags.

***Baby Toolkit hacks family life from their now slightly-less-derelict Heartland HQ.  We work to bring you up-to-the-century, completely biased observations on geek parenting.

Our (un)Resolved Life: 2011 Wishes

As 2010 draws to a close at the toy-strewn Jones Ranch, we're commemorating the year's closure by enacting a rather typical 2010 evening- carry-out food and Mythbusters on Netflix streaming.

Beyond "more sleep" and "fewer episodes of Barney" (the price of literate preschoolers operating Netflix streaming), Jim and I are waaay too tired to conjure new resolutions.

We're thankful to be spending this mundane evening with our little family at home.  A quiet night together is welcome respite.

May your 2011 be full of quotidian joys and comforts.  Peace and goodwill to you, friends, as we travel through this turbulent life.

Her First Mistake: Our Story of Premature Birth

Once upon a time ago
Way up in the land of sleet and snow
How this fairy tale would go
I could not have known*

A few weeks ago I loaded the kids into the car, handed the keys to my dad, and told Ranger that I'd pick him up from preschool dismissal in a few hours.  Although my energy levels were low and I was having a few strange symptoms, this pregnancy consistently depleted me in ways prior pregnancies had not.

The morning's routine OB visit would most likely confirm some sort of Braxton-Hicks false alarm and leave me with instructions to "take it easy" for the next 6 weeks.  At worst, I thought I might be sent home for more formal bed rest.

One routine ultrasound, non-stress test, and doctor's appointment later, I was walking into the hospital admissions to be monitored and given further tests.  The routine blood screening results pointed to a completely unsuspected problem, I met the high-risk pregnancy specialist, and short term monitoring ensued.  My dad transferred the kids to Jim as the morning's tests stretched into the afternoon.  My comfortable clothing was vanquished for a hospital gown while night fell outside the windowless triage unit.  Around the time the hospital kitchen closed for the night, I was informed that the doctor had ordered a 24 hour test and I wouldn't be going home until the test's completion.  Everything was weird, but I still expected to return home pregnant.


Around midnight I moved to an actual hospital room.  With a hospital gown, fetal monitoring cables, rampantly unshaven legs (think wookie), and a pregnant woman's bladder, the en suite bathroom was a welcome change from regularly walking down a public hallway with cables resting over my neck (hiking up the gown in awful ways).  When the nurses confiscated my cup of water in the middle of the night, I wrote the whole situation off as a need for fasting bloodwork.  I slept fitfully for a few hours still thinking I would return home within 24 hours.

Shortly before dawn, a technician filled vial after vial with blood.  My water cup made no return appearance and a nurse put me on an IV.  Something was afoot.  I texted Jim and my dad about this, but didn't make the cognitive leap.  I called my mom (she doesn't text) and said that I might be being prepped for something, but the 24 hour test wouldn't be over for at least 12 more hours.

A couple minutes later, my OB walked in the room and told me that she couldn't sleep at night because my first round of blood work results were mysterious and alarming.  That morning's results were even worse, and I would be having the baby in about an hour.

It was then I knew I had made my first mistake

I had less than an hour to get Jim there, arrange impromptu care for the kids, and inform my parents (who live at least 30 minutes away from the hospital).  During a few frantic calls arranging the transfer of car seats and kids**, hospital staff started surgical prep.  I gathered up my few personal items and just tried to manage the logistics from a hospital bed that suddenly seemed to be on the other side of the moon.

One (accidental) look in the mirror told me that I shouldn't see the kids before surgery.  My typically scruffy appearance had turned from indifferent to unwell.  I wasn't quite ready to be cast in a zombie movie, but it no longer required blood work to see that things were abnormal.  I didn't want to scare the kids (and Ranger already dislikes hospitals), so I made more calls to make sure they didn't come to see me.  Jim made it just in time to prep and attend the birth.

I said come on baby
Come on baby
Come on baby

Except for the expedited nature of the birth, everything else was familiar.  Same surgical staff and anesthesiologist as both of the other kids.  The recognizable experience lulled me into thinking that everything else would be familiar, even when they introduced me to a nurse from the NICU who take care of the baby after the birth.

In the swirl of the operating room, the great question of baby gender was finally answered: a baby girl, a new daughter, a new sister...

It was then I met this girl so fine
She made me think so fast I left my thoughts behind

I got to hold her, this miniature doppelganger of earlier Jones babies, for a head-swimming moment

I could see her light began to shine

She turned...her eyes met mine
And suddenly the whole world became
A better place
 

Even if it was only for an instant

Then the NICU nurse rushed her off fearing respiratory distress.

It was then I knew I had made my

Second mistake

The recovery room seemed quiet to the point of vacancy.  Despite all signs to the contrary, I kept hoping that the curtain would draw back and the baby would be rolled in.  Instead each tug of the curtain only revealed someone else with questions or tests for me.

Soon the my bed was on the move.  I was wheeled to our daughter's baby-warming bassinet in the NICU and able to hold her briefly.

It was then I knew I had made my third mistake

In the NICU's bright lights and beeping alarms, I realized that our baby wasn't the exceptional case- the miracle baby who would elude the NICU and an extended hospital stay despite a premature birth.  She would not stay overnight in my hospital room.  She would have to gain weight and learn to digest food before she could leave specialists' care.

Then, like some twisted Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, I found my bed on the move again as I left our tiny baby in the care of others, well-trained strangers, but strangers none the less.

Yes three strikes right across the plate
And as I hollered honey please wait
She was gone

Hours turned to days as the baby and I struggled to normal functioning.  I came home without her, and Jim and I worked to be at the hospital for most of her medical tests and waking time (8 feedings, 1 every 3 hours).  She grew stronger, achieved milestones, and eventually was released into our care.  Soon she was in our chaotic home meeting her siblings for the first time.

And that's when she knew
She had made her
First mistake.

Honey I don't know just what you heard
But come on baby
Are my favorite words
And where we're going
Is a long way from here

So like I said before
I could not have known
How this fairy tale would finally go
 

Still the only certain thing for sure
Is what I do not know
 

So like the years and all the seasons pass
And like the sand runs through the hour glass
 

I just keep on running faster
Chasing the happily
I am ever after

I just keep on running faster
Chasing the happily
I am ever after

*If you don't listen to Lyle Lovett, you should start immediately. And yes, Logan, I was thinking of Deer Creek when I wrote this.

**Thank you, Francie.  Your willingness to jump in and help with only moment's notice is extraordinary in both kindness and logistics.  You amaze me, friend.

***Baby Toolkit is the ongoing thoughts of two geek parents.  We are all doing well (except for a lack of sleep) as we adjust to this new routine.  Happy New Year, small print readers (you know we love you the most)!

Half the Weight, Twice the Adventure: Pregnacy Goes Preemie

For months, I've been anticipating the announcement of Baby Toolkit's newest geek.  It's been hard for me to keep quiet for months about our baby in development, especially as this pregnancy has been my most challenging.  This may make my posts about specific foods a bit more understandable.

BabyGeek1.3 (yet to be nicknamed) conspired with my AMA (Advanced Maternal Aged) body for a Beta release.  More clearly put, she was born prematurely at a 34 week gestational age.  Her weight, slightly less than a little sack of sugar, is about half that of our older kids.  The strong family resemblance makes her seem a miniature of Ranger and Scout as babies.  Even at a tender young gestational age, our littlest girl exudes personality and family traits.  When she puts on her Elvis lip and it transitions into a sly half-smile, the twisted Jones sense of humor seems strong in this one.  She's also been driving a few of the NICU nurses crazy with her physical strength and persistent desire to kick off swaddling devices.

The health problems that precipitated her birth are resolving themselves quickly.  Our little baby is growing leaps and bounds in NICU.  Ranger and Scout look forward to meeting her in person.

In the crazy hours surrounding her birth I realized (with regret) that I have read almost nothing about pre-term babies.  We have much to learn right now.

We proudly welcome this tenacious new member to our family.

~the Joneses

When Life Gives You Apples, Make Apple Cake (And Invite Me Over)

About a month ago, Ranger talked us into buying an enormous bag of beautiful Granny Smith apples at a warehouse store.  My kids love tart Granny Smiths more than any other apple, and I am to blame (either by nature or nurture) for this.  There is nothing like the sharp snap of a tart slice of apple.

When I sliced the first apple from the bag and gave it to the kids, Ranger declared the apple sub-par.  In his defense it lacked the crispness that characterizes Granny Smiths.  I figured we could still make it through the bag; a green tart apple is a green tart apple, right?  It turns out that Ranger has the dedicated tastebuds of a wine master.

Later I fed him a sliced Granny Smith from a local orchard.  He loved it and asked for more, so I sliced an apple from the bag that I'd moved to the fridge the previous evening.  He took two bites and pushed it away.

I gave the leftovers to Scout who played with them for about 15 minutes before asking for "an apple."

I sliced another chilled bag apple and put it on a new plate.  She ate half a piece, shook her head, and asked for cheese.

Jim soon arrived home and helped me eat the two rejected apples.  That only left a few more pounds in the pantry.

In subsequent weeks, I kept trying to pass off the apples as grocery store apples.  To no avail.

Then I started looking for Granny Smith recipes.

Relish! had one for apple cake that looked straightforward and didn't require a special trip the grocery store.  The heavenly autumn olfactory trifecta of cinnamon, cake, and baked apples now waft through the house.

Relish! Apple Cake
Prep: 30 minutes Bake: 50 minutes Serves 12 3 cups all purpose flour 2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 2 large eggs , lightly beaten 1 1/4 cups canola oil, (or cooking oil) 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3 Granny Smith apples , peeled and chopped 1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted per serving: 317 calories; 3 grams protein; 18 grams total fat; 1 gram fiber; 2 gram saturated fat; 35 grams carbohydrates; 21 mgs cholesterol; 188 mgs sodium		Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. [1] Grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan; set aside. In a very large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; make a well in center of dry mixture and set aside. [2] In a medium bowl, combine eggs, oil and vanilla; stir in apples and nuts. Add egg mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moistened (batter will be thick). Spread batter in prepared pan. [3] Bake for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for at least 1 hour. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

The sweet cake bakes to form a crunchy top that yields to a soft crumbly interior.  The texture and homey flavors of cinnamon-sweetened apples well suit this season of crisp leaves, pleasantly sharp breezes, and harvest flavors.

The commonplace ingredients, simple recipe, and exquisite results are typical of our cooking experiences with Relish!

This recipe was good enough to make me (momentarily) consider another mammoth bag of mediocre Grannies, but then I realized how wonderful it might be with fresh orchard apples.  If you try it, let me know, or, even better, invite me over.

***Baby Toolkit is written by at least one geek parent with a serious sweet tooth and a love for fall foods.  We are (paying) Relish! subscribers since October 2008 and credit the online menu planning service for most of the home cooking we accomplish.  We have no ongoing financial relationship with Relish!  We are however Amazon affiliates, so purchases made through our Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Baby Toolkit (many thanks!).  

GenCon 2010: A family adventure

Long before we started loading the car, I knew Ranger was eager for GenCon Indy.  Last Halloween, when he first donned his Mario costume he said, "Let's go to the Costume Place [his name for GenCon]!"  For the next 10 months, every time he saw his Mario costume I had to explain that GenCon only happened once a year and yes, we would pack his costume.

We worried about how Scout would tolerate the crowds this year.  Last year, she rode in our awesome Kelty Town backpack where she napped a lot.  She was not yet a walker, so her independent nature wasn't insulted by the continuous carrying.  This year, she's a toddler who prefers running to walking and she only endures a stroller for short periods of time.  The backpack offers her a better perspective, but we couldn't imagine her quietly napping between intervals of waving and people-watching like last year.

And her brother wanted her to dress as Luigi.  I envisioned her felt mustache, hat, and overalls staying on for maybe 30 minutes before she demanded something more comfortable.  After filling my bag with snacks, small games, and a girly sundress, I crossed my fingers that her upcoming meltdown wouldn't deafen too many innocent bystanders.

After the long drive to Indy, Ranger was so excited to change into his Mario costume.  Scout was far less enthusiastic to change clothes.  We had to park in a nearby mall parking garage and take skyways to the convention center.  When we entered the elevator to enter the mall Luigi was whining in her stroller and Mario was bouncing off the walls.  Then the elevator doors opened to a chorus of "awwwww" spouting bystanders and Jim and I magically transformed into celebrity handlers.  We weren't 10 feet out of the elevator when the first person asked to take the kids' photo.  The photographer was a mall shopper, not even a con-goer.

Scout has strong social instincts and relished the attention.  Ranger can be shy, but as Mario he's unflappable.  As we neared the convention center and met more costumed people, the kids filled with excitement.  Their euphoria reminded me of childhood Halloweens and returning to summer camp.

Within our first hour at GenCon, Luigi was kidnapped by the World's Tallest Leprechaun.  Her casual attitude about towering over all the people surprised us.

The kids got to meet icons of our childhood like Zelda's Link, Alice's Mad Hatter, and the Duck Hunt Dog (with Ratchet) .

They also picked up world-domination tips from the villainous, venomous Cobra Commander:

The next few days were a bit of blur.  Jim and I stayed up way too late trying to solve Puzzle Hunt 9 the night after the family scoured the convention hall for all the clues.  The kids insisted on wearing their Brothers Plumber costumes every day and relished all the smiles, waves, and high fives that resulted.  Ranger climbed and bounced around LEGO Games' giant inflatable Ramses' Pyramid at every opportunity.  We played demo games, tracked down some titles we've been looking for, and people watched.

We also ran from the Beholder, swam in the hotel pool a lot, spent time with old friends, and enjoyed being back in the Circle City for a couple days.  The days were splendid and jam-packed.  We all wanted it to last longer and are looking forward to next year.

Keep an eye out for upcoming reviews of the games Ranger and Jim played.


***Baby Toolkit is the ongoing saga of geeks with kids.  We're Amazon affiliates, so a small portion of purchases made through Amazon links on the site does come back to us and we use it to pay for connectivity (thanks!).

Photos (all but Link): (c) babytoolkit.blogspot.com, 2010 all rights reserved.  The Link photo is John Stanifer's (Link).