As Told by Oliver

I find myself dismayed and disappointed in my parenting as Ollie claims he does not remember a single fairytale. We are staring at a fairytale exhibit in the Panhandle-Plains Historic Museum. It is absolutely gorgeous and Ollie has absolutely no interest. 

This week we dedicated ourselves to making up for lost time.

The following includes Ollie’s retelling of selected fairytales.

Gingerbread Man

I can’t remember again who made the Gingerbread Man. He was kind of running away. All of them were chasing him. There was an old lady and I don’t know what else again… There wasn’t an alligator. Aha! There was a fox. He eated the gingerbread with his mouth. The fox tricked him. The Gingerbread Man thought he was being nice but he tricked him like that. 

The Ugly Duckling

The bird and then it was a swan, kind of. He turned into a swan. I knowed that. They can’t tell it’s a little bird. So that they think… they weren’t nice to him. No, they were nice to him, but the little bird didn’t think they were nice to him. When he was a swan they were still ugly. All the birds turned not a duck anymore. Just a swan. 

Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood’s mommy told her not to talk to the wolf but she did anyway. She went to Grandma’s house. The wolf was trying to pretend to be Grandma. Little Red Riding Hood said “Grandma, what big eyes you have!” And the wolf said “come closer.” Little Red Riding Hood said “Grandma, what big teeth you have!” And he said “come closer again,” and then he ate her up and she stayed in the belly kind of. 

I can’t remember who saved her. It was a man. He tried to get them all and hammer the wolf, but he run away. The man saved Little Red Riding Hood and Grandma by getting the Big Bad Wolf. The man shook him and Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood got out. They chased the wolf. That’s it.

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I have come to the conclusion that Ollie does remember some fairytales, as he was avoiding a lot of them. He asked if Jack and the Beanstalk was about the giant and definitely didn’t want to do that one. He was also adamant about Three Billy Goats Gruff. They are all pretty violent and scary compared to modern children stories.