Panda and Bedtime

Bedtime ritual

At bedtime, I tell my son a story about some adventure had his stuffed Panda, named Panda. Panda is the only panda in the village with the distinction of being named Panda, the names of the others are modified by their profession. Baker Panda in particular comes up a lot, usually because he’s the first one who comes to mind. Baker Panda is always in some predicament. Last night, Panda had to rescue him from a flooded river. When asked, Baker Panda said he was just curious about what would happen if he got in the river. Idiot!

I think my son’s favorite character right now is either the friendly t-rex who patrols the village, or the World Dragon, a 1000 story tall dragon who lives in low Earth orbit and who occasionally descends to Earth to eat Panda’s enemies. The one I’m most proud of is Cave Creature, who is friendly but who cannot abide the light. No one knows what Cave Creature looks like. I’ve tried to introduce other characters, like the Grumpy Wizard, but he tells me they’re boring and makes me change it up.

Anyway, my son has started to insist that he be a part of the story, too. He wanted to narrate his own actions, so we’ve arrived at a sort of nightly freeform roleplaying game. The other night, Panda fell into a deep cave. He was unharmed. I said, “Panda fell down into a cave! He says to come down and explore with him, the cave is huge!”

“No, that’s really dangerous,” my son says.

“There might be treasure!”

“Or just dust.”

“Uh, okay. Well, Panda still needs to be rescued.”

“I’ll go get the rope from my jeep.”