Poet child narratives?

Having a partially verbal child who wants to tell stories about his life is a fascinating phase. Otter has just, in the past two or three weeks, started to accumulate memories that he turns into recurring stories. At night or in the car ride to daycare, he'll start in on a story of going to the park and riding the train, or getting a blood test for anemia done at the hospital, or going to the Eric Carle picture art museum (see-UM) with his parents and grandmother.

However, because Otter is not yet talking regularly in complete sentences, never mind in complete paragraphs, these stories need some interpretation. He strips them down to the barest essentials, the most compelling images and moments, omitting all transitions and often the verbs as well.

For example, here is one version of his story of getting the blood test. (My explanatory notes added.)

Hozbiddle. (we went to the hospital)
Turn! (we went through the revolving door into the hospital)
Squeeze arm. (they tied the rubber tie around his arm to check for veins)
Other arm. (couldn't find a good one, checked other arm)
Other one. (back to the first arm, tying more tightly this time)
Poke it... needle! (self-explanatory, I think)
Like it. (said morosely, as what he is trying to say is "I don't like it" but he hasn't mastered don't)
Blood... red... tube (red blood came out and went in a tube)
All done! (said with air of satisfaction and a bit of anxiety)
Bandaid, PUR-ple one. (they gave him a purple stretchy "bandage" covering for the gauze over his tiny pinprick) (which, by the way, he didn't want to take it off all day; he showed it to everyone who came into the daycare, though he doesn't talk about that)
Turn! (revolving door again)

Now, I know I'm NOT at all objective, but I find that story pretty cool for a not-quite-two-year-old. Of course, if you weren't there for the event he's describing, it wouldn't be so clear what the heck he was talking about. (He might tell you who was also there, as that's another new trend: "Mama Tuuuuh!" Or, in the case of the train, "Daddy train Tuuuuh!")

And not being me, you probably aren't so impressed.

But developmentally, it's a definitely new phase. He is linking longer and longer chains of events or ideas, even if he can't quite articulate them yet.

His latest this week is to say "coffee" sometimes after he says "Jo", to remind us that Grammy Jo, when she visited this past weekend, drank coffee. And you have to respond, affirming that you understand what he's saying: yes, Grammy Jo drank coffee when she was here.

I feel like a UN translator for toddlers doing haiku narratives, a job I never knew I wanted, or even knew existed, but now I find it wholly compelling.

Though not so much compelling at bedtime when he wants to tell stories of what seems to be every experience he remembers from the past three weeks.