The bear decided to swing

This morning, we embarked on our usual Sunday ritual of going to get donuts and going to the park. It was an absolutely perfect fall day: sunny, not too hot, not too cold, the aspens bright flashes among the evergreens, the willows by the pond in the park in the midst of their slow turning.

As we drove home from the park, we heard Ellie make up her first song. She started off with the first verse of "The Bear Went Over the Mountain", but after the line, "And what do you think he saw?" she answered it with, "He saw Ellie swinging, he saw Ellie swinging. He saw Ellie swinging, and what do you think he did? The bear decided to swinging (sic), the bear decided to swinging, the bear decided to swinging, and what do you think he did? The bear pushed Ellie [on the swing], the bear pushed Ellie, the bear pushed Ellie, because it was so much fun." And that was that.

I'd never heard her tell an original story before. She narrates plenty of things, but it's always been a retelling of a story we've read to her or from one of her Sesame Street videos. Needless to say, I was delighted.

Hard to say if the story - and choice of song - were influenced by the fact that as we were walking home from our friends and neighbors' barbeque last night, around 10 p.m., the neighborhood bear was walking up the street towards us. It was the first time we'd seen him when we were all on the same ground; normally he's just a shadow among shadows as we peer out the window. Turns out that he is freaking massive. This point was especially driven home for me as he drew level with my car. He was easily more than half as tall as the car - when he was on all fours - and he looked to be about two-thirds as wide. That is a big old bear. My hubby attempted to instruct him to "go on", in hopes that he'd turn around and go back the way he came, but he kept heading right for us. So we decided to go on, ourselves, and headed back to the barbeque. We had another leisurely drink with our friends, and when we next tried to go home, the way was bear-free.