As I was singing “The Lion Hunt” with a group of preschoolers today, and we got to the part where we go through the mosquitoes, one little girl shouted out “Don’t worry!  I have Bug Spray!”

 

I was singing and dancing “The Button Factory” with a group of pre-schoolers the other day – when we finished one of the girls in the group said:

“He works in a Butt Factory?”

I said “No, no, no – button factory!  Like buttons on a shirt!”

She smiled and said back “I thought he worked in a butt factory!” 

 

A woman had her 9 month old child with her and noticed a hair sticking out of his nose.  She tried to get it but he kept on squirming away.  Her friend asked what she was doing.  The woman said back “He has a nose hair!”

Her friend replied “He’s too young to have a nose hair – it’s probably just a dog hair stuck to a booger!”

True story – I swear!  😀

I was in Billerica yesterday – but I can’t believe I forgot my camera!  There was such a great turn out – and they were a wonderful group!  So instead I have a little story for you today from the Eastham Elementary School…

Before my show started I was enjoying the Kindergarten Music class.  As they sang “America the Beautiful” I heard these lyrics being sang:

“O’Beautiful for spaceship skies…”

It was pretty cute – and yes, the Music Teacher did tell them it was spacious skies – but I kind of liked it the other way…

 

I had a very fun and also a very interesting day today.  I was in Sharon, then Lexington and ended in Weymouth.  At the end of the shows I had a chance to let the children ask a few questions.  One child asked when my birthday was.  That was funny.  I asked back “Why?  Are you going to get me a present?”

Another child asked me how many stories I have, another asked who my favorite character was – and then another asked “What happened to all your hair?”  I usually can answer rather quickly no matter how off topic the question may be – I mean, we are dealing with children here.  Very rarely do they stay on topic.  Here I just looked around and said back “Oh no!  Did it escape again?  If anyone sees my hair let me know!”

 

As I was about to begin my show at the Little People’s College and as all the little kids were entering the room one of the boys looked at me and exclaimed “Yes!  We’re watching a movie!”  The teacher said “No, it’s not a movie – It’s Big Ryan, the storyteller” 

The little boy said back “Yeah, it’s just like a movie!”

I took that as a major compliment 🙂

 

As I was entertaining at a party today I decided that I would sing “Old Man Johnson”.  It’s a Big Ryan original music and movement song where, as I sing the song and dance around, the kids join in and we all have a good time.  Well, today, the kids just stared at me as I kept singing – but none of them danced along, which, as you can imagine, is pretty embarrassing. 

Then, the moment in the song where I say “He jumped and jumped, jumped and jumped, till the morning blue…”  One of the little girls looks at another and says “You like to jump.  Jump.”  The little girl says back “We’ll jump after this…”

After?!?  What was wrong with jumping at the appropriate time in the song.  Apparently they were having too much fun watching me do it.  They didn’t want to miss anything. 😛

 

While I was waiting to go into a show, as the crowd was arriving, a brother and sister came in to the Library.  The sister picked up one of the flyers that promoted my show.  She said aloud “Big Ryan will share his stories and his puppets!  See!  I told you he has puppets!  You owe me a million dollars!”

To which the brother shot back “No!  I said a quarter, not a million dollars!”

Man, that’s quite a difference.

 

My friend Matt has daughters named Molly and Maeve.  I just performed for two different sister’s birthday- coincidently named Molly and Maeve!  When my friend Matt told his daughters that I met two other little girls with their names, Molly said to Maeve:

“Maeve is a very common name.”

 

As I was organizing a game of kickball with the after-schoolers today one of the boys, Nate, fell pretty hard.  He got up and held his finger.  He held in crying but instead said “Big Ryan, I think I broke my finger!” 

I asked back “Can you bend it?”

He replied “Yeah…”

“Well, then it’s not broken.”

Yeah, but it’s bleeding!” he said.

I stared at his finger and saw that it was not bleeding.  “Nate your finger’s not bleeding…”

To this, Nate began to squeeze his finger even harder trying to force a drop of blood out and said “Hold on a minute…”