New Characters! (Part 1)

Over the weekend, Libby made Gabe a house out of a cardboard box that came wrapped around the Little Tikes table his Grammy and Grandpa Love bought him. We suggested the table because he had spent the last month trying to climb up to our dining room table to color, eat, stand on the chairs, or whatever. He was rather obsessed with being up there for awhile. We thought the smaller table and chairs would be perfect for him—something his size that he could play with his cars on or draw on. Sadly, he’s not been terrible impressed with the table. He uses it, but mostly just to set things on. He still pulls his coloring books and crayons off it and either sits on the floor or goes into the dining room with them. Kids. What can you do?

But we also saved the box because, traditionally, he loved boxes. Possibly because the box was too big for him to climb on, he had almost no interest in it. We tried to show him how he could take his stuff inside it and have his own little “house” to play in. He had no interest. So, Libby took it one step further on Sunday. She cut out a door, two windows, and used another shipping box to make a roof. And Gabe loved it! For about five minutes. He went in there three or four times yesterday, but only stayed in for a minute or so each time. So far today (Monday), the only interacting he’s done with it has been to pull the roof off. Twice. He’s also knocked it over and tried to pull apart the bottom.

Gabe's House. Look for it to appear in at least one upcoming story (which will probably be soon since I predict he will do irreparable damage to it within the next week)

But I’m excited about having another prop! At least as long as I can keep repatching whatever he tears off it. I think there’s a story brewing already, but I think I’m going to need a few new characters to pull it off. So, it’s time to add some other Characters to the Bedroom Storyboard.

Danny the Dinosaur

Or The Big DD as he likes to be called. Danny is a dinosaur. A Dimetrodon, to be exact. I know this because I looked it up on the internet. Unlike most kids, it seems, I never had a dinosaur phase. I remember a friend’s kid, who was about five. He could identify by name about ten pages of dinosaur pictures. Some of the names were fifty syllables long. I was never that kid. Growing up, I could readily identify the Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Brontosaurus (which the scientists also took away from me, right along with Pluto. Thanks for nothing, science. Now I can easily identify less than a handful of dinosaurs and My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine . . . . Yeah! She just served us NINE! That means nothing! I suppose she could have just served us nine Plutoids, but that’s just stupid. Where would even a very educated mother find nine plutoids to give her children?) Thanks to the Dinobot Transformers, by the time I was 12, I could identify three more dinos: Pteradon (though I still think Pterodactyl is the only flying reptile anyone should ever need), Triceratops, and Stegosaurus. And that’s it for me. I vaguely recall there was something called an Ultrasaurus, which was like a Brontosaurus on growth hormones, but that’s as far as my knowledge on that subject goes, and I’m not even sure if that name was official. It doesn’t sound official. It sounds like another Dinobot.

Anyway, Danny was one of Gabe’s first toys. I think Libby bought it for him at the zoo, maybe. She, unlike me, was a dino-nerd growing up. She had ambitions of being a paleontologist well into high school (she even went on a dig in Montana, I think, with the famous dinosaur guy, what’shisname, who was the model for the paleontologist in Jurassic Park, apparently. Horner maybe? Jack Horner? Wait, wasn’t that the kid who sat in a corner? Guess he went on to make something of himself in the dinosaur business, and Libby worked with him in high school).

Aside from being a dinosaur, Danny doesn’t have any backstory. As I’m sure observant visitors have noted, Danny has been an active “extra” in several of my stagings. Most interestingly, he was a dinosaur ninja. That concept certainly warrants more looking into.

Miles O’Tootsies

How many tootsies do we have? MILES O’Tootsies. Sorry. That’s actually a converted Star Trek joke that references probably the greatest Star Trek character ever, Miles O’Brien, who was played by possibly the greatest actor ever, Colm Meaney (OK, maybe saying he’s the “greatest actor ever” is a bit of a stretch, but he’s always been one of my favorites. I’ve always sworn that, if I ever made a movie requiring the emphatic, repeated use of the F-Bomb, I would cast Colm Meaney in a heartbeat. He says it better than anyone. If you need proof, watch “The Van.” Though, good luck finding it. Despite being part of a popular Irish trilogy of books by Roddy Doyle—and “The Snapper” and “The Commitments” have been on DVD for ages—it’s never been released on DVD. But it is a funny movie, and Colm is brilliant in it).

Miles was given to Gabe by his uncle Peter last Christmas, so he’s a newer character in our stories. So far, he hasn’t been worked into any multi-character storylines, but his solo story was one of Gabe’s favorites (and by that I mean that he almost paid attention to it more than once because it was heavy on action). Miles is the Great Irish Hope for track and field events in the 2012 Olympic games in London.

After hitting a dry spell of, oh, forever, Ireland decided that it was time they made their mark on the “people with fast feet” portion of the Olympic games. And if a person with two feet can run fast, then the thinking was that a person, or “person,” with eight feet could run four times faster. After all, the cheetah can run 75 mph with only four legs, so, in theory, something with eight legs should be able to run 150 mph. This, obviously, would make the runner unbeatable in the Olympics, though so far Miles has only managed to get up to 110 mph, but that’s with only four months of training under his belt.

Of course, his dominance of the Olympics will only happen if Miles can get into the Olympics. So far the International Olympic Committee has been stonewalling the Irish appeals for acceptance of their super runner based on the fact that, up to this point, no super fast caterpillars have ever competed in an Olympics. Despite the Irish calls for “equality of species,” even going so far as to call the IOC a bunch of “poly-pedal bigots” and “dooty-headed butt smellers,” there has been little progress on the case. Nonetheless, Miles has been training rigorously for these last few months, mostly in our living room, where he runs like the wind across every surface imaginable.

Fat Bunny

Our friend Liz gave Gabe Fat Bunny as an Adoption Day present last week. For some reason, possibly because of his enormous size (relative to all of Gabe’s other toys, except for Dag, who is still the biggest), Fat Bunny has rocketed in popularity in Gabe’s room. Despite the fact that the doll takes up a significant portion of his bed, Gabe insists on having Fat Bunny in there with him. Actually, the number of toys Gabe insists on having in his bed is getting a little out of hand. It started with Elmo. He had to have Elmo. Then he had to add the Wonder Pets, which he collectively calls “Ming Ming,” even though we’ve specifically named all of them many many times. Then, for some reason, he had to have Dr. “Snips” in there (though we’re not sure why, he’s never really cared for that one, and he doesn’t snuggle with it or anything, he just wants it in his bed. Maybe he thinks Dr. “Snips” could provide good protection against bogeymen, and I guess I can’t blame him there. He is the only toy Gabe owns that has his own weapons built right onto the end of his arms). Then he had to have Crotchy in there. Finally, last Friday, he saw Fat Bunny on the floor outside his bed and had to have him put in his bed. Several times I’ve pulled him out, but Gabe tosses him back over the edge of the crib and back into bed.

Gabe's Bedtime Buddies. Taking up roughly 25% of his sleeping space.

I, of course, am curious where this will go. My assumption is that, eventually, he will have so many toys in his bed that he will be sleeping on a bed of toys instead of a mattress, and I find that strangely intriguing. Part of me wants to try it myself, but I’ll resist the urge.

Fat Bunny doesn’t have any significant backstory yet. Presumably, he comes from the same land where Fat Sheep and Fat Frog were born—where the everyday inhabitants are all morbidly obese (I like to call this magical land “America”), but he has the added “benefit” of suffering from gigantism (which I think should be changed to “ginormism” now that “ginormous” is an official word). More than likely, every time I need a giant of some sort, Fat Bunny will fill that role. We’ll just have to see how it all plays out.

More to come.

And, no, I haven’t forgotten about Akiko’s story. You don’t get off that easy, I’m afraid.