Talk Me a Gruesome Story

Eleanor has some ... interesting ... tastes in stories. There's the Tinkerbell stories that I mentioned before. But now there's also a few "A" favorites. She likes to hear about ambulances, accidents, and allergies. I think she's going to be a doctor.

I know how the ambulance obsession started: it's because, on the drive across town, we pass a large ambulance bay? depot? whatever it is, there's always several ambulances out front. We've gotten in the habit of pointing out when it's coming up (See? We're getting closer! You don't have to whine for the entire ride, really! Focus on the cookies you'll get once we're at Grandma's.) and we count how many ambulances are parked there. Sometimes we guess before we reach it how many ambulances we think will be there, and Eleanor also likes to pay attention to how many ambulances are facing in or out.

This has led to many discussions about what ambulances do. It also led to some concern on my mom's part, when Eleanor was in the car with her and asked for an ambulance story. This entails someone Eleanor knows getting very sick (usually a stomach ache caused by excessive consumption of cookies), calling the ambulance, hearing the siren, and the patient being safely delivered to the hospital, where they will be completely cured. I think Mom found the idea a little macabre.

The ambulance stories, however, aren't nearly as bad as the accident stories that came soon after. I can't remember as clearly where this came from .... we might have passed an accident on the highway, and I talked a bit about how cars need to stay on the road and if they go off the road or run into each other, that's an accident. Sometimes she wants to hear other accidents (people running into each other, other smaller events) but mostly she wants to hear about car accidents.

And finally, her most recent story request pertains to allergies. More medically detailed, but at least a little less gruesome than accidents or ambulances. Again, I can't remember why it started, but once she went on this allergies kick, we got out a book about allergies from the library, and she was ecstatic. She's learned about food allergies, breathing allergies, and skin allergies. She knows that her Daddy is allergic to pollen and her aunt is allergic to penicillin. When a kid in her music class turned out to have a peanut allergy, she almost hyperventilated because she was so excited.

I have no idea what her next "talk a story" request will be. Another "a" word? Another request somewhat related to the medical field? I look forward to finding out what it is ... even if I'm not quite as ecstatic as she is at the thought of talking this type of story many, many times. Talk me an easy story!