Improv-a-mama

Tell Me a Story: Using Touch

2010-03-10T10:17:00.000-08:00

There are many different ways to incorporate the sense of touch into storytelling and story-acting.

I focused on touch as a starting point when I was working with seniors with dementia. I always had a bag of scarves to serve as props and often brought in other objects (often natural objects that were out of reach for folks living in a facility like seashells or pine cones). Of course all of these objects activate other senses too, but it was important to me to have things they could touch as well as see.

One moment will always stand out to me. A woman that enjoyed our talk sessions but really was not into our acting sessions got swept up into a group-created story about three sisters getting ready to go to a dance. When she agreed to be one of the sisters, I asked her "what color dress will you wear?" She replied, "Blue" and her eyes lit up with delight when I pulled a light blue scarf from my bag . "Yes, that's the color!" she said. She and I draped it over her and throughout the rest of the session, I saw her stroke the scarf while she participated with gusto. I believe it was that moment where her senses got united with her imagination that freed her to enjoy stepping into the group's story.

So here are a few ideas to get started:

1) Choose an object (or objects) to bring into playing with your little person and see how it evolves into a story. With a seashell, you can talk about its colors and textures, listen for the ocean and tell/act a story of the shell' s journey in the ocean. Or imagine what it is like to live inside a shell and act that out.

2) Choose a tactile way to expand a written story that your little person enjoys. An example is having a set of keys to use while reading "Goodnight Gorilla." Scarves or playsilks are always wonderful to become the sea or the sky or other elements of a story.

3) Start with the tactile experience of the here and now. If you and your little person are barefoot in the grass, explore that feeling and let it grow into whatever comes next...maybe being a piece of grass growing. Or telling a story about the toes in the grass that met an ant. Or the toes in the grass that met other toes and took them to meet the brick path by the grass.

That's just the beginning....what ideas do you use with your little ones?

The View from Here & Now

2010-03-09T13:52:00.001-08:00

Here and now, I am on a plateau. Somehow so many areas of my life (including finding "a ha!" moments and ideas to blog about) feel stalled right now. My ability to initiate, to create, to make things happen...that ability seems to be set on low (or off). I feel less competent in almost every arena of life. Ugh.

I am not patient with being on a plateau. I am not gracious about being on a plateau. I have all kinds of "good" self-talk about how being on a plateau is also part of learning and growing. It can be a place of integration or a place of regeneration. I am trying, trying, trying to see it as an opportunity to regenerate, to restore energy to heart and mind and spirit.

I attempt to reflect on other plateau times and I know these things to be true. That the plateau is part of learning. I am seeking ways to breathe deeply and take in the view because I know that when things get moving again, that big things may happen.

Improv frames my perspective in this as in many things. I remember after about 2 years of improvising (and I mean IMPROVISING...once I caught the improv bug, that's what I did 4 or 5 nights a week...classes, shows, impromptu get togethers, etc), I just stopped improving. I wasn't able to translate my knowledge of characters and story into action in scenes and games. I floundered. I despaired. It went on for a looooonnnnng time. Friends became performers and excelled. I remained in classes and regressed. And got upset and sad and didn't think it would ever change.

And it did. Slowly without realizing it, it changed. All that head knowledge turned into active knowledge. And I was invited to perform. And teach. And so many doors opened up that I am ever grateful for not giving up. I didn't know what life would look like off the plateau, just that I wanted off the plateau.

Many years later, my perspective is a bit different. I would like to get off the plateau but my hope is I can use this time to prepare for the unknown ahead. I want to feel ready to start saying YES to ideas and opportunities (without obsessing about where are those ideas and opportunities???).

This post is part of the Moms' 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

Little Person, Little House

2010-03-08T20:42:00.000-08:00

There was a Little Person who had a cardboard box.

Her mama had a yearning to make something from this box. The box moved around their home for many weeks, sometimes being played with and sometimes just being a box.

Then there was a day full of rain and colds in the head. Little Person and her mama were looking for things to do.

So they made a little house:

The little house had a little door and windows all around. Little Person put a layer of lovies in and had her mama put her in through the roof. Then requested story after story read to her through the window.

A few days later the sun came out...so Little Person and her mama (mostly her mama who really likes that kind of thing) painted the little house:

This post is part of se7en's Fabulous Friday Fun!

A Girl with a Plan

2010-03-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

LP has always been a focused individual. And she has always had plans...I think it a main drive in her early mastery of words was "get these big people in on what the plan is."

And turning 3 has turned up the passion for her plans. She wakes up in the morning with ideas for the moment and the day and goes to sleep at night talking about her next plans with her loveys.

She often bursts from her room after "quiet time" (in quotes because it is rarely quiet) with a list of what comes next. This morning she arrived by our bed with an armful of pandas who NEEDED a walk and then to be wrapped in a blanket while LP ate yogurt with frozen raspberries.

ImprovDad and I are both pretty delighted by her plans. We want to raise a strong girl who can articulate and follow her passions.

Of course, true to her stage of development, interruptions in her plan are met with protest. So I'm attempting to be creative so I still say "yes!" to the plan and her enthusiasm and also can 1) disengage myself when I need a break or have something else I'm doing or 2) there's something else I need her to do (like submit to a diaper change or get her shoes on).

Today as I was trying to wrangle these thoughts into a post, I had the "a-ha!" that some of my delight in LP's plans come from the commitment that she brings to them...it is full commitment of body and spirit.

One of the principles of improv is just that -- COMMITMENT. When we're creating, it is so easy to get scared or unsure or even just plain confused (I've had that moment on stage plenty of times..what just happened?). Commitment is the answer. I've experienced it and witnessed it so many times with improvisors on and offstage. When we commit and really commit with our whole body and spirit, our confidence grows and we start to delight again in the act of creation and the experiences we're having. An example I use in teaching is often in rhyming games which is "a word rhymes with itself -- cat rhymes with cat perfectly. A word rhymes with a similar sounding real word -- cat rhymes with bat and also with a made up word -- cat rhymes with giblat. AND cat rhymes with dog if you say it with enough commitment."

In reflecting on this, I see that I've been in a low-commitment zone. My mind feels a bit fuzzy and I have a slew of unfinished business. None of those projects has hit the crisis mode...and all seem to be in meandering mode. Even my novel is sputtering.

I think I need to see if I can approach even one of these lingering projects with some of LP's energy. If I were to write my novel the way LP tells a story...well, that's an interesting idea... I imagine that I'd be enjoy

Singing to Potatoes by Candlelight

2010-02-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

Tonight during dinner, I mentioned how I thought our potatoes probably wouldn't come up. The day after LP and I planted them, we had a week of torrential rain which just seems like too much water. I also fessed up that I don't really know what the growing potatoes would look like and thought I might "weed" them by accident.

LP had a plan (she almost always has a plan these days). She wanted to go out to the garden with a candle and sing to the plants.

A little dialogue brought ImprovDad and I up to speed...and we made the connection to the Frog & Toad story where Toad is worried that he scared his seeds by yelling at them to grow so he plays violin to them and reads them stories.

It would've been easy to talk about it, to story it and to maybe even play act it. LP was suggesting it but not strongly, not insisting on it. AND it was such a perfect moment to surprise LP (and ourselves) by saying "yes!" The dinner clean up could wait, so could the bath. So could every other distraction of the moment.

So after dinner, out out to the back yard we went. I held a candle and LP rode on ImprovDad's shoulders. We stood in front of our wee potato patch and made up a song "Grow potatoes, grow." There was a half moon shining through a partly cloudy sky and a few stars peeking through.

And best of all was the smile on LP's face.

This post is part of the Moms' 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom. Go on, click over and check out all the links.

Another Improv Craft Friday

2010-02-22T14:57:00.000-08:00

LP's 3rd birthday was yesterday, so the end of our week last week was all about preparing to celebrate.

The main craft activity was making party favors. A few weeks ago, LP and I had hunted through Goodwill for a wool sweater to felt (my first try). So I had the shrunken, felted sweater which I cut and sewed into mini-bags. (These two a few takes to get them the right size to hold the favors and have decent proportions for being held by small hands.) Then I made a version of Rainbow Mama's little people. I've made a few different iterations of these as gifts...I thought making mini-ones was going to go faster but actually small ones took longer. (So glad I was only making 6!)

Then I added dinosaurs because LP loves those dinosaurs.

LP enjoyed playing with scraps, requesting that I cut her some "pie" or "cherries" or "noodles" and had her usual good time with thread.

She also spent an incredibly long time sorting out branches from a bush that she collected.

It was fascinating to me to listen to her talk as she played and I sewed...sometimes she gave each branch a name, sometimes she gave each one (what sounded like) a title of a book and sometimes she used made-up words. As always I am learning that I never know what will spark her imagination and it was fortunate for me that we each ended up able to work on our "projects" side by side.

I linked this post to se7en's Fabulous Friday Fun!

Cloud Parenting

2010-02-15T20:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get stuck in my own story.

We all do. Probably more often than is comfortable to admit. I find that I've become closed to alternative ways of seeing or understanding. There are many paradigms out there to understand this process....and all of them (in my mind) boil down to this...there is more to the story.

"More" can be a different perspective. "More" can be details that have gone unnoticed. "More" can be allowing new feelings to color and tint OR letting old feelings stop coloring experience. "More" can mean so many things.

One of the glorious things about improv stories is that they are of the moment. The more experienced an improv storyteller becomes, the more at ease one becomes with exploring new paths, letting go of assumptions and experiencing new story realities...essentially ready to watch the clouds of the story change. Was that a rabbit in the sky....or a mushroom growing near a top hat? Or was it a rabbit disappearing into a discarded magician's hat?

Last week, in the midst of a bunch of rainy days, we had a burst of blue sky. After a lunch picnic, LP and I lay on a blanket and watched the clouds move in the sky. And as I watched those clouds change, I thought about how much LP is changing every day. I tried to soften my gaze on her and see the things that I don't usually see. It is easy to focus on the parts of LP that delight me and the things that are challenging. So easy to focus on the first image, on my first ideas and assumptions about what it means that she loves to make bouquets out of any material she can find in nature. Or what it means that she prefers the color red. Or loves dinosaurs.

And focusing on those details can leave so much out of the story of who she is today...and tomorrow. Noticing the details is wonderful. So is noticing when the details are limiting my ability to really see her in any given moment.

It is a challenge to give up our solid sense of story, of this is how you are and who you are. Yet when we can do this, when we can see each other as changing beings, we can not only better support growth but enjoy all the potentials you can see.

I hope that I can remember to watch LP with that soft, cloud-watching vision sometimes and to also help her build her ability to see the world in alternative ways.

This post is part of the Moms' 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

A Tree "Grows" in LP's Room

2010-02-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

This was really my improv craft project (i.e. just leaping in without much of a plan and figuring it out along the way) but LP was along for the multi-day ride of making it happen.

I've wanted to add texture and color to LP's room for quite awhile. Since we rent, there are some limitations to what I can do to the walls, etc. After much contemplation, I finally felt inspired to make a felt tree to cover up the closet door. I bought some brown and green felt, pulled out the sewing box and went to it.

While I worked on this (over 5 days), LP supervised, played with the fabric scraps quite a bit, arranged pins in the pin cushion and (my favorite) made "costumes" by wrapping herself in thread. Yellow thread was her duck costume, green thread was her frog costume and red thread was her London bus costume. It brought back many sweet memories of playing with my mom's sewing box (which is mine now) when I was a kiddo.

Here's the closet before crafting:

And here's the progression of a the tree "growing"...I measured the height of the closet and cut the trunk shape freehand and taped it with my trusty painters tape.

Once it was up, I cut down the center (because the closet folds out) and started sewing it through the slats. This took a loooooooonnnnnnnng time. Cool unforseen effect is that the thread loops make the felt look more like bark.

Next up, I cut leaves out of the green felt using my pinking shears and arranged them on the tree branches. These leaves also were sewed on through the slats of the door.

Lastly, I used leaves to make the rest of the crown of the tree on the door frame. These leaves are hot glued together in bunches and then tacked up with green tacks.

I hope LP enjoys it...I had a good time making it!

AND this post is linked up to Se7en's Fabulous Friday Fun

Act It Out: Transitions

2010-02-08T20:04:00.001-08:00

While many of our co-created stories occur during quiet times when the goal is settling down and peacefulness, there are also so many opportunities to use story to get into action. I'm trying to get more in touch with these active story opportunities...especially as the on-going cold rain has me feeling like curling up under a blanket and have someone tell me a story (and oh, yes, how I look forward to the day when LP does).

I'm experimenting with using story-acting as a transition when LP is coming to the end of an activity (or if I need her to come to the end of an activity). For example, if she has been building happily with the Legos but seems to be getting restless with it and hasn't self-initiated something else, I might join her with the Legos and make a few offers to see if we can transform the moment. (She has so many opportunities throughout the day to self-initiate, I like to see if at least once a day I can pay close enough attention to be a part of it, just for varieties sake...and it does also work if the "transition" LP has arrived at is whining.)

Currently her Lego creations are either parfaits or trampolines or parfait trampolines (sticky but sweet landings on that one)...so I might start a story about a trampoline who liked to make people go up and down and flip around. I'd repeat a key phrase like "up and down and flip around" and then stand up and do some action of "up and down and flip around" myself and then invite her to join me and do it together.

As we're going "up and down and flip around," I'd pay attention to LP's body and words to figure out where to go next. The story-moment can be brief and just the transition (as our action moves us to the big bed for some tumbling time) or can be an entry to a shared imaginative experience as we find out what happens when the trampoline flipped LP so high up into the sky that she landed on a cloud or perhaps she would become a pancake being flipped.

This post is part of the Moms' 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

Wrap it up!

2010-02-07T20:37:00.000-08:00

We have entered the birthday season!

Between mid-January and mid-March, we celebrate 8 family birthdays (including myself, LP and ImprovDad) along with the birthdays of 3 of LP's girlfriends (all turning 3). So there has been a lot of talking about birthdays and opportunities to sing.

After making wrapping paper and wrapping up a present for a friend, LP was bit by the wrapping bug. She comandeered all the paper from the easel and brought a steady stream of lovies and books to be wrapped. Once wrapped, a present was gently carried to its recipient while LP sang "Happy Birthday." (Bartie the Bus made out like a bandit with Via the musical frog a close second although LP tells me her real birthday wasn't until Saturday.)

It was fun to watch the game evolve, especially when I got on board (and stopped putting away the tape each time as if it was over) and shared the birthday fun. I am, it seems, always learning that it is actually faster to say "YES!" and join in play and then move on to what I want (or need or think I need) to do. Delaying tactics lessen LP's fun because she moves her focus from her game (which she just was trying to share) to actively trying to get my attention.

I'm sure we'll be playing "wrap it up" again and next time I'll be ready to empower LP to do more herself (like pieces of tape lined up on the easel for her to use as she pleases).

This post is part of se7en's Fabulous Friday Fun (and no, it isn't Friday on any calendar except the improv one where it can always be Friday...thanks se7en for understanding that!)

Tell Me a Story: DIY Myth

2010-02-02T14:44:00.001-08:00

And so our sleep-deprived story continues....

As LP (and we) serve out our transition time (that uncomfortable time when the old way of doing things no longer works and the new way of doing things isn't yet defined), there are many awake hours in wee hours of the morning.

Not my best time.

I'm trying many new things to shift our nights into a better and more sleep-filled experience. Along with some straight talk about nighttime (which is for sleeping) I'm also developing the story of the Sleepy Bird. I have a (hopeful) feeling that Sleepy Bird will become part of our bedtime and re-falling asleep routines. She has great potential to serve a mythic function.

A few nights ago, LP really settled down as I started to tell her about the Sleepy Bird getting up out of her nest and flying through the night sky, over houses and apartments and all kinds of places that people are sleeping. I was able to spin a long, long story about trees dreaming about tree things and so on. When the Sleepy Bird sees someone not sleeping, she comes and sings a soft, sleepy song to help them go back to sleep.

Last night when I said goodnight, I reminder her about Sleepy Bird, she smiled and softly said "tweet, tweet".

Fingers crossed that "tweet tweet" and lead to sleep, sleep.

This post is part of the Moms' 30 minute blog challenge over at SteadyMom.

A Happy Day

2010-01-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

There's nothing quite like a break in the storm.

For the past few weeks LP has been wrestling with a developmental leap -- it has been clear in her behavior that she was frustrated a lot more than usual. There's been a lot more screaming and night-waking and whining.

And yesterday there was a breakthrough of joy and expression and she (and by extension we) had a much more fun day.

Overall her mood was upbeat and what really stood out to me was the new level of creative expression. She was a singing, storying, playing whirlwind. Goofy and delighted...and delightful too.

Most of it was in the moment so is just captured in my memory but here's a few pics anyway (as a side note, much as I dream of being an all-natural material toys home, a girl loves what she loves and currently what she loves is a Simpsons chest set we recently uncovered in a closet...c'est la vie!)

Here are the Simpsons (from a chess set) on their lego trampoline-bed reading The Mouse & The Buddha:

After that, they needed a snack of kafarla and fatooda (spellings approximate since LP can't spell yet):

Act It Out: Getting Started

2010-01-26T19:39:00.001-08:00

Looking over my blog, I realize how heavily I rely on improvised verbal storytelling and have neglected getting into action. The reason is because verbal stories have been what seem to delight and inspire LP's imagination but as I'm working to challenge her to expand her play, it is good to challenge us both into more active storytelling.

Getting started can be easy...while sharing a story (either made up or already known like a fairy tale), find a place to do a little action together. You can flutter like butterflies or wiggle like worms. You can feed each other pretend spoonfuls of the Three Bears' porridge or clip-clop clip-clop around like the Billy Goats Gruff.

You don't have to commit to acting out the whole story to introduce action into storytelling... although acting out whole stories is something I look forward to with great anticipation!

This post is a part of the Moms' 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

Jenny on Improv, Kids & Storytelling

2010-01-20T18:52:00.001-08:00

My friend Jenny (improvisor and mom of 2) wrote about telling improv stories with kids over at Improv Notebook. Go check it out!

Tell Me a Story: Meandering Along

2010-01-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

One of the traps that I fall into in my storytelling is trying to make it all a neat package with a cohesive beginning, middle and end. Yet if I pay attention to LP during storytelling I find she is much more open-minded about where a story goes. It can be a reflection of (or my best guess) of some of her experience in the world. (Sometimes I think my storytelling job is to help build cohesiveness and other times I think it is simply to reflect.)

So today's storytelling challenge is to let yourself meander like your kiddo.

See something shiny in your story...go over there and describe it, explore it, find out what it likes to eat for dinner and oh, wait...look over there! It's a worm in a puddle swimming home. Follow the worm as she wiggle-swims along and then....Hey! Look over there! The worm found an apple to eat and there's an apple tree with a bird's nest in it and the nest has three eggs, one blue, one green and one red. The eggs are starting to hatch and out comes a dinosaur, a turtle and a bird. A little girl named LP climbs the tree and look sin the nest and then.....

well and then, see what happens next and next and next.

Return to Play

2010-01-19T13:48:00.001-08:00

Things haven't been feeling so playful lately at casa de Improv-a-mama. LP's sleep is a mess and therefore so am I. I know it is a phase (most likely brought on by the combination of being almost three + starting to use the potty + transitioning to a big girl bed) but still, I've been feeling off my game in all areas of my life.

So I've been trying to remind myself to find some improv structures to add play into our day when it isn't coming from me in any kind of organic way and when I find myself saying a lot of "no" and wanting to sneak away to read or websurf the second LP's attention is on anything else. I find the structure so helpful AND it takes a lot of pressure off needing to be creative. So the main structure is find something (anything) to say "yes" to and then play with it.

Today play also served some other aims as well.

On our rainy walk, a beanbag purple cow (named "July the Space Heater"...after the cat at preschool and her favorite object) became the vehicle for play. I would place July in a bush and then start looking around calling "July....LP, where's July?" And LP would trot over and find her with joy. July got in trees and fences and behind trashcans and then got to try out a tire swing. And (here's the bonus), LP walked so much more than usual. She's been wanting to be carried everywhere and I so want her to walk more without me becoming a nag about it. Hurray for July the Space Heater and walking Hide and Seek! (And hopefully the extra exercise will help on the sleep front)

Then at lunch, LP was asking and asking and asking for "parfaits" (a la Fancy Nancy of the book of the same name). We save ice cream for a special dessert for Shabbat evenings so I said no but offered to make almonds into French "almondine" by slicing them. She was totally into them and enjoyed asking for another almondine (I sliced them one at a time at the table). Bonus was getting the extra healthy food in her.

Even finding these little bits of play in our daily routine lightens the mothering load that lack of sleep was making feel quite heavy. Remembering that simple "yes" and then just letting an activity grow from that almost always leads to new discoveries for us.

This post is part of the Moms' 30 minute blog challenge over at SteadyMom...go on, check out what other moms are blogging about.

Why Improv in 2010?

2010-01-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

It seemed like time to revisit the question I first asked early last year (posted on Feb 2, 2009...for some reason I can't get it to link directly to it).

And it connects to some posts/discussions I've been enjoying on other blogs about individuals pursuing meaningful action in their lives (check out this at SteadyMom... there are others which I'll add when I'm not under 30 minute deadline!)

As a theater artist, I've struggled with keeping the work meaningful. When I was deeply immersed in playwrighting, I looked to Athol Fugard and Vaclav Havel (heck there's a playwright who became president!) as role models for keeping the work of meaningful. When I decided to write, direct and produce a play for my senior thesis in college, it was inspired by the graffiti on the women's bathroom walls on campus and performed as a fundraiser for local nonprofits. When I went to work in professional theater, I worked on educational programming that was about social issues such as hate/violence, substance abuse and sexual harassment.

But I did not find my place there.

I wandered in and out of different theater experiences and writing experiences looking for a way to integrate my desire to make a difference in the world with my desire to make a place for myself as an artist.

Then I fell in love with improv.

The experience changed my life. I was so painfully shy that I could not imagine making it through that first class (with the brilliant Rebecca Stockley). And I made it through that class. And the next few years of classes and adventures in experimenting and failing and struggling to become a person who can say "yes" and find out "what comes next."

And then Rebecca invited me to teach. And I fell in love with teaching. And made that my work for a number of years.

Yet, as much as I loved teaching improv, I did not feel like I had fully found my place.

So I went back to school and studied drama therapy and went into the world integrating the art of improv with mental health practice. It was hard work. It was meaningful work.

Yet, as much as I was inspired (& often exhausted) and moved by the work, I did not find my place there.

So I pulled back and tried a lot of different paths (drama therapy with seniors, corporate training, freelance this and that, documentary film production). I became a mom, struggled with postpartum depression and am (I think at long last) getting back in the practice of trying new paths.

All I know for certain is that improvising is a part of the meaningful work I am going to do.

So why improv? Because...
... the practice of improv creates community
... the practice of improv has taught me to be more brave and take more risks
... the practice of improv creates optimistic habits of mind
... the practice of improv has helped me be more open minded let me know that there are more paths to explore

Today's post is part of the Moms' 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom. Stop on by over there, see what other Moms are blogging about and say "Congratulations!" to Jamie on the publication of her book Steady Days. Post time start to finish is 29 minutes...whew!

Happy Birthday Un-Scripted!

2010-01-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

My theater company is starting its 8th season...today's post is to celebrate that!

We've been through a lot in eight years.

It started as a small group of improvisors wanting to do more, explore more and build a real theater company based in the art of improvisation.

To create Un-Scripted, we've had a lot of meetings. A lot of meetings. In the beginning, we met every week. I think even twice a week at times.

We've negotiated, coaxed, fussed, fought, made-up, come to consensus, celebrated, taken each other for granted, made up new rules, reinvented the wheel, come to more consensus over and over again. We've even come to consensus a few times about coming to consensus being our decision making model.

We came up with a name everyone liked (that took at least 6 months).

We became an official 501(c)3 nonprofit.

We wrote a mission statement (that took a couple years).

The Un-Scripted Theater Company creates smart, innovative, and entertaining improvised theater that delights our audiences and advances the art and craft of improvisation.

Every year, we come up with a season (which takes between 1 to 6 months).

We performed for 5 people in a space that would seat 30.

We performed for sold out crowds in theaters that sat 60.

We have had all kinds of growing pains and bumps and bruises -- interpersonal and organizational.

We've encouraged members to quit their day jobs and follow their dreams.

There have been marriages to celebrate and babies to welcome.

There have been losses to grieve.

Some members have moved away.

Some members have just joined.

Even though it is hard, there is something so energizing about working as a group. I have always loved creating as an ensemble. Even though my life as a mama limits my involvement, I'm deeply grateful for the ongoing flexibility of our ensemble.

Happy Birthday Un-Scripted Theater Company! And thank you to everyone who has helped us make it to this age!

This post is part of the Moms 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

Tell Me A Story: Poetry

2010-01-04T12:30:00.001-08:00

My fallback storytelling is to start with what is in front of me. I use details from what I'm looking at or something we did that morning or some concrete event and tell stories from there.

And I've realized that is quite useful, it also can be limiting when I only rely on those techniques.

And I've also realized that LP has NO PRECONCEPTIONS about poetry and all the delightful things that make something poetic (simile, metaphor, imagery and so on). So all the fear voices in my head that criticize my poetic efforts are now dismissed.

So recently I'm reminding myself to play with those things and tell a story about the trees talking with the stars in the sky and a cloud's adventure floating overhead and to imagine eating ice cream is like eating a snowdrift.

This also evolved into a game yesterday when LP was cuddled up in my lap after we spent a good bit of time attempting to plant potatoes (various mishaps occurred, it is quite possible they won't come up). I blew on her and said "Mama is the wind and LP is the tree with lots of leaves" and she giggled. After a few times she started to rock against me and I said "LP is the ocean crashing into Mama as the beach." And she said "crash, crash" getting more intentional in her movements. After a minute or so, she cuddled in again and said "I'm a bird" and when I said "and I am a nest" she said, "Where's mama bird?" So I became that instead.

It was sweet and playful and seemed to fill her up more than a cuddle on its own. (This is pretty crucial these days when I am so hungry for her to play more independently).

"You guys sing..."

2010-01-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

I've been noticing and delighting in LP's evolving storytelling. She's moved from responding to more and more initiating.

Now instead of "Tell me a story." she will say "Tell me a story about a space heater who had a cold and needed a cup of tea."

The same is true for songs...she's been saying "Sing a song about a Wild Thing named Violin Case who wants her Mommy."

These requests are so alive and energetic as she moves toward taking on more and more creative control of the stories. I'm reminded how like so many developmental leaps, it is building on the many, many stories I've told, ImprovDad has told, books we've read, stories we've created together ~ some fun, some boring, some logical, some nonsense ~all of these contribute to the magic of now.

Today in the car on the way back from a hike in the Oakland hills, she was calling out to us "You guys sing a song about Sarabbi walking Lulu the dog wearing poodle shoes." (Sarabbi is her new name for herself)

And so we did. And then another and another. All different, all directed by LP. My favorite car ride as a family to date.

Happy New Year, LP ~ I'm looking forward to all the stories we have ahead of us in 2010.

Tell Me a Story: Perspective

2009-12-29T15:04:00.000-08:00

LP is in love with a Wild Thing.

We went to the Sendak exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and interacting with the two "live" Wild Things was the highlight. Actually the only light because once LP met them the rest of our time in the museum was spent "Wild Thing hunting" so we could find them again. (The actors in those costumes were really great especially since they couldn't really see and had to have a museum staff member directing them where to aim their lovely masked faces and furry waves and high fives.)

So LP got to choose a stuffed Wild Thing at the gift shop; it was truly difficult choice as she told me "I love them all." And so Violin Case (yes, that's the Wild Thing's name and no, I have no idea why but it kinda works) has become a part of the family.

I love the name Violin Case because it so exemplifies the freedom of LP's stage of life. She likes the sound of those words so why not a name? I enjoy so much of that part of LP's play these days...one of Violin Case's buddies at our house is the space heater (named Feather). And really, why not a space heater (as long as certain safety rules are followed). Big huzzah for the imaginative freedom to be friends with people and live animals and plants and stuffed animals and all kinds of inanimate objects.

And now for the storytelling connection....the night after Violin Case joined our family was truly epic in the lack of sleep. Epic. Even for us, the house of insomnia and bad sleep. And it was just LP and me because ImprovDad was out of town. There was singing, there was cuddling, there was rocking, there was soft music and back rubs....and a story.

I told LP the story of Violin Case's day from Violin Case's perspective (rather a la Coduroy). Even despite the miserable early morning hour it was a fun way to tell a story. It was especially fun to explore what Violin Case's thought about LP and our home and the new friends she met like Feather.

So that's my new storytelling start...taking the freedom to choose a different perspective.

This post is part of SteadyMom's 30 Minute Blog Challenge.

These are a few of our favorite things...

2009-12-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

As 2009 hurtles to a close, I thought I'd share a few of our favorite things on the books and music front. One of the many wonderful things about being an improvisor is that everything is grist for the improv mill...just like common advice for writers is to read a lot, same is true for improvisors. The more diversity we are exposed to, the more choices our imaginations have as possibilities when we start making things up.

So here's some music and books we enjoyed (and occasionally both combined):

Top Songs of 09
LP gets very attached to songs. We started the year with the incessant refrain of "My Favorite Things"...thank goodness I love Julie Andrews and the Sound of Music because that song was truly on nonstop. Here's some other songs that took several spins on our cd player and ipods:

"Choo Choo Boogaloo" by Buckwheat Zydeco (on the album of the same name)
"Riding on the Buggy" by Phil (on the album Turkey in the Straw)
"Shoveling" by Tom Chapin (on the album Family Tree)
"Roller in the Coaster" by Justin Roberts (on Putamayo's Folk Playground)

A few artists got major play with more than one song in the rotation...pretty much anything by The Carpenters, Asheba (wonderful, local artist, one of my favorite children's performers and I've seen many in a past life in arts-in-education) and currently The Allman Brothers.

Also books that are songs like Raffi's Baby Baluga and Natalie Bernard Westcott's Skip to My Lou were happily read/sang all year long. (I enjoy Westcott's illustrations so I pick up anything at the library that she's written or illustrated.)

Favorite Kids Books
LP and I are major library hounds...and we got through lots and lots of books. These are the ones that stand out and came home with us multiple times (mostly picture books although some are also available in board book form):

I've always loved Bruce Degan's Jamberry and this year we discovered Daddy is a Doodlebug -- an instant hit in our house.

Olivier Dunrea's gosling books especially Gossie and Gossie & Gertie

Farm Fresh Cats by Scott Santoro... a quirky book about the day that something extraordinary happens on Farmer Ray's farm.

Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

The Mouse and the Buddha by Kathryn Price

Count by Denise Fleming

Time for Bed by Mem Fox

Hush Little Baby by Sylvia Long

Poppleton books by Cynthia Rylant and Mark Teague (early reader book)

Night House, Bright House by Monica Wellington

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson

The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco

The Alphabet from A to Y with bonus letter Z by Steve Martin & Roz Chast

Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Tabak

And pretty much anything by Dr. Seuss, Sandra Boynton or Ezra Jack Keats.

Leave Them Laughing

2009-12-15T14:38:00.000-08:00

No games or improv musings this week (although I have a bunch brewing on the back burner)... just using this small platform of this blog to help my friend and fellow improvisor Carla raise awareness about ALS. Truth is I wish I knew Carla better but have been fortunate that she has been sharing her experiences in her straight-forward, funny, sexy and sometimes raunchy style. I know that we none of us know how we will face death but I know that my perspective on the roads available to travel down is much expanded because of Carla.

I'm going to quote Carla for the next bit...she says it better in a recent email than I could:

I'm writing you after a short stay in the hospital where I discovered something distressing about ALS. I know you're probably thinking "What isn't distressing about ALS?" and you'd be right. I discovered how unknown ALS is even to health professionals. Of all the paramedics, firemen, nurses, and nurses' aides I met last week, NONE OF THEM had heard of ALS.

This is a problem.

It made me think about my son's frequent lament that the reason ALS awareness is so important is not because it's the worst disease and not because people are inherently more worthy of awareness when they have ALS, but because AIDS and cancer have 100% awareness and ALS didn't even hit 10% in a frickin' hospital.

Therefore, I have made it a goal in the months I have left on this planet to get 10,000 people that don't know about ALS to learn about it.

One way that Carla is doing that raising awareness is through the calendar she has shepherded into being. Carla rallied a group of folks with ALS and put together the Aways Looking Sexy 2010 calendar. You can read about it here and buy it here.

You can also learn more about Carla and her journey on her blog and from the musical comedy documentary about her, "Leave Them Laughing". Yes, that's right, she's the subject of a musical comedy documentary about her living and dying...that's Carla.

This post is part of the Moms' 30-Minute-Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom. It took the whole 30 minutes...but not more!

When Someone Else Says "Yes"

2009-12-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

My Aunt J is visiting us for a week which is fabulous in so many ways. Many of those I had expectations for (like childcare --- woohoo!!! --- so I was able to say "yes" to some freelance work this week) but the best thing I've seen is the way she notices what LP is interested in and says "yes" to it through her actions.

Like many of her cohort, LP is a nature collector. Happiness is being outside, making bouquets and collecting bits of nature - olives, flowers, grass, dandelions. And fall leaves have been her delight.

And a wonderful thing Aunt J is doing for LP, is that every morning as she walks to our place from her b&b, she picked up something special for LP...a large handful of yellow gingko leaves or a twisty branch with light green leaves or some bright red maple leaves. Such a wonderful start to their connection every morning.

Ah, yes...it is lovely to have one's little person seen by another.

The Not-So-Fearless Mama

2009-12-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

I got stuck at the top of the slide today.

That kind of thing hasn't happened to me in a looooooong time. But boy howdy, do I ever have a history of getting stuck in high places. Slides, adventure ropes courses, ladders, trees -- you name it, I've gotten myself to a height where my paralyzing fear kicks in.

This is the first time it has happened with LP.

It is a cold, overcast day, so after a lovely time at the library with my visiting Aunt J, we stopped at a deserted playground. The one with the old fashioned metal equipment including teeter-totters and my nemesis, the slide. A tall, metal, twisty slide.

That LP, of course, wanted to go down.

And I foolishly said "if you can climb up there on your own, I will go down with you."

And she did (with me climbing right after her, getting more anxious as we got farther off the ground). The girl who has never shown any interest in climbing ladders went all the way up.

And then the panic set in.

To top it off, the top part of the slide was one, big cold puddle from the rain. A cold puddle that I ended up sitting in as I struggled to not completely freeze up in panic.

I could not go down the slide. And I could not see being able to climb down the ladder with her. Stuck, stuck, stuck. Stuck and sitting in a cold puddle with a getting-fidgety LP. Aunt J was trying to help from the ground but wasn't able to come up and help.

My mind was racing and I really wanted to be able to go down the slide, to show LP about overcoming fear, about being afraid and doing it anyway. Those are life lessons I believe in and want to share actively. One of the many things I've loved about learning to improvise, is that I am less fearful as a person. I've learned how to embrace risk-taking of all kinds. Risk-taking on stage has led to risk-taking in life. Over my years of improvising, I've actively worked on many of my fears, including heights (really, I used to get panicky just standing on a chair and joke that it was a good thing I wasn't taller because I'd be scared).

So sitting there, miserable, cold and afraid with my daughter, I tried to muster some improv juju to help me get down.

Nothing.

In the midst of it I started to realize that I would never ask LP to take on something she was so scared of in such a big chunk. I would help her break it down. And for me to succeed at taking her down this slide, I needed to do it in smaller chunks, like going down without her first (which was not really an option in the moment, but still a helpful realization).

So I took a deep breath and focused on the streets outside the playground and after a few attempts, caught the attention of two nurses walking out of the hospital across the way. I called out that I was stuck and couldn't get down with my daughter and one of them was up the ladder to us so fast, it was amazing. She climbed down with LP and then helped talk me down the ladder as I thanked her again and again.

LP, Aunt J and I walked home fast as possible because it was cold in my very wet pants. I was feeling badly about LP seeing me fail at this (and not keep true to my word).

Yet another improv lesson is "fail gloriously" and it is so true that failure is often where the learning is at....so LP will get to see me fail and try again AND try again with the support I need to succeed.

For the interim, I'm sending her to that park with ImprovDad over the weekend for a fear-free slide experience.

Today's post is a part of the Moms' 30-minute blog challenge over at SteadyMom. Click on over to see what other moms are blogging about and wish Jamie a happy blogoversary!