More Eli froggy stories

"Okay, Eli, you want another froggy story? Who should be in it? Cletus? Okay. Bosefus? Of course. What about Eli? Should Eli be in it, too? Good.

"One day, Cletus and Bosefus were hanging out. They decided that they wanted to throw a birthday party for Eli. A SURPRISE party! Shhhhh, don't say anything!" Big smiles from Eli as he listened. "So Cletus and Bosefus invited everybody they knew -- Eli's Mom and Dad and brother and sister, G (of course!), and all the rest of the family, Miss Jenna, Miss Kelly, and Miss Jackie -- is that okay, Eli? Can Miss Jackie come to the surprise party? Good!

"Cletus and Bosefus made a cake. What kind of cake? Carrot cake?" BIG frown. "Vanilla? No. Chocolate? I agree. They decided to make them into cupcakes. No? Okay, three-layered tier cake. And ice cream. And what to drink?"

Here Miss Kelly chimed in from across the room, "Eli loves soda."

"Oh! Soda! So everyone got ready for the big surprise. Shhhhhhhh. It's a secret! Eli came home on the bus after school just like usual. The bus pulled up to his house and he rolled right on in, totally unsuspecting. When suddenly, out from behind all of the furniture, everyone jumped up and yelled "SURPRISE!"

"Eli was so surprised and pleased! Everyone had a great time. They ate cake and ice cream and drank soda. In fact, they drank and drank and drank. And you know what happens, don't you, Eli, when everyone drinks soda?" I put my hand on his chest, "The soda goes down into the tummy and forms bubbles. And if you drink a lot of soda, the bubbles start getting bigger and bigger until suddenly you start floating in the air.

"That's exactly what happened to Cletus, Bosefus, Eli, Miss Jenna, G, Miss Jackie and everyone else who was drinking all that soda. They went up, up, up into the air. They just floated around. And do you know what they started to do?" Pause for dramatic effect. "They started to play Human Bumper Cars!"

This is when things really picked up in my silly story. I demonstrated Human Bumper Cars on Eli's chair.

"They started bumping into each other." WHAM! I'd hit the side of his wheelchair and Eli would burst out laughing. It was the best! WHAM! Big guffaws! WHAM! Couldn't get enough of the idea of all those people floating up into the air bumping into each other. WHAM! Until finally, they started burping a little and the soda bubbles died down, and little by little, they all came back down to the ground with a THUD!"

"More!" Eli cried.

"So they decided to play some games, since they were having so much fun. No? No games? Okay, they decided to swim in the pool? But Eli, you love to swim in the pool. They ate more cake? What did they do, Eli? Did they drink more soda? Oh, okay. They drank more soda, and pretty soon everyone was floating back up in the air. Floating, floating, floating, until . . . WHAM, they started running into each other again. Human Bumper Cars!"

Oh, yes, those human bumper cars were a BIG hit.

"More!"

"Well, the party finally did finish. Everyone had a great time, but Cletus and Bosefus didn't quite want to go home yet. They wanted to go to the grocery store." Big lip. "No grocery store? But they needed to go buy more soda! Okay, so they went to the grocery store. Each frog had a cart and Eli had his wheelchair, and the grocery aisles started looking might tempting. So they started racing down the grocery aisles like the crazy ones they were." Squealing sounds, moving Eli's chair back and forth, corner turns, acceleration. It was great! "Bananas were flying everywhere. Cans toppled to the ground. People were falling. It was a mess!"

"More!"

"But Eli, it's time to get ready to go home! We'll do more stories tomorrow."

And we both had to be content with that because who doesn't love a good froggy story!