Little Bear's Adventures - A Bedtime Story

Author's Note

I was chatting casually with a reader and mentioned that when my nieces and nephews were small, I would write bedtime stories for them. 

Since they lived a very far, far away, many of these stories were sent to them by mail. I wrote to them in WordPerfect (do you remember WordPerfect?) and saved them on a 3 1/2" floppy disk. Printed on paper that was so thin, dragged up by rollers. You had to rip the sides off, where the perforations were. 

Am I old? Probably. I learned DOS. My first job was payroll in working in greenscreen. Windows 3.1 was a total gamechanger. When I finally left my job, Citrix was my desktop and payroll was done in an inhouse app. 

But I always told these stories to my kidlets. They LOVED the animal stories. I wrote about a bear, fox, deer, wolf, and an owl. There was an otter and a turtle... then lastly, I had a "mean" crocodile who was really, really nice. As they grew, so did my forest Animals. From babies, to independent adventurers to "Teenagers" and finally, Adults with babies of their own. 

They were used as bribes. "Listen, if you don't cry tonight, I'll read an extra chapter." Or, "If you don't fight with your brother, I'll read your sister's story." (There were three kids - 1 girl, 2 boys.)

These stories became especially important after my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer at 34. She was pregnant, still had a toddler and faced many hard decisions. 

Left as the babysitter, bedtime became our time to cry, or cuddle. All of us on one big bed, the kidlets listening to me read or later, they would take turns. 

My sister made her hard choice, aborting the baby to safely go through chemotherapy. She stayed with me for months, so therefore, the kidlets did too. 

More and more bedtime stories flowed. Animal stories were left behind. 

Boys wanted space or dinosaurs. My niece wanted romance as she got older. Then... I showed her MySpace. (Anyone here remember MySpace?) A budding fanfiction writer was born! She wrote cheesy love stories about all her favorite bands and singers. I was gagging with every piece she showed me.

Did I show it? NEVER! Instead, I praised her and enrolled her into a creative writing program. I wanted her to thrive. 

Eventually, they all grew out of Bedtime Story Time. The little one, the last kidlet, cuddled me around 14 or 15 and thanked me for writing about him being a famous goalie. 

It's funny, because my two strongest memories of my nephew is that one and one from when my sister went through her battle with cancer. I had taken him shopping, and had to pay. Setting him on the counter to get my wallet, the little guy had looked at the clerk, and in total seriousness, said, "You have two boobs, my mom has one."

I wanted to died in mortification. Explaining why he said that, the line burst into laughter. That didn't help much!

Anyways, I had to ask my family for help. I had nothing saved on CD! My sister didn't save the stories. And while I still have the 3 1/2" floppy disks there is no way to access them. I asked everyone with a pc (laptops don't even read cd's now!) but it's definitely obsolete tech.

My niece had this one, a carefully saved childhood memory. I added the cartoons for visual appeal. If you enjoy it, I will write more. I know that this isn't exactly the right place for posting kid stories, but... @pg0004, this is for you!

(Please note: I do not own the images. They are all found on free clipart websites. In case of dispute, please let me know, and I will remove the image file)