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I was in charge of putting Cordy to bed tonight. She has a set routine that she follows nearly every night. First, she picks out a few toys to take up to her bedroom (a few will come back down with her in the morning), often asking me to hold one or two. Then we slowly go up the stairs and she turns on all of the switches in her room: the overhead light, the nightlight, and the ceiling fan.

Once she climbs into bed, she arranges her toys just so, and then I give her three blankets, all in a particular order. We have our normal back and forth of "I love you. Night, night. Sweet dreams," and then I usually leave the room.

But tonight, as I was pulling the blankets up, she said, "A story, mommy?"

"What? You want a story?" I glanced around the room, looking for a book to read to her. She has a bookcase, but many of her favorite books are hidden under the bed or stuffed behind her chair where she can find them when she wants them. I really didn't want to crawl under her bed for a book.

"I tell you a story, mommy." That was a first - she's never tried to tell a story before. I wasn't sure what to expect. After all, she can't tell me what she did at school each day, so I couldn't imagine that she could craft an imaginary story.

"OK, Cordy. You tell me a story."

And then the story began. "Once upon a time, there were three letters. (She pointed to the letters on my sweatshirt.) They were in the spooky forest, and they were big...." Her voice trailed off. I wasn't sure if she had already grown bored with her story, or if the difficulty of creating a story was frustrating her. It was a good start, though, and I wanted her to keep trying.

"Then what happened?" I asked.

"Then the knights got on the horses. And there was tea." Her voice trailed off again, as if she didn't know where to go next.

"What next?" I prodded her on.

"The volcano! It was a giant volcano, then it was small. And the roadrunner ran really fast."

She paused, and I waited to see if she would continue again.

"And there was a river. Goodnight, mommy!" She rolled to her side and hugged one of her stuffed animals tight.

"Goodnight, Cordy."

I walked out of her room grinning ear to ear. That was her first story, and though it had no organization, no plot, and no solid ending, it was still her first attempt at telling a story. I may have to start telling her more stories and encouraging her to tell me more stories to improve her storytelling skills. If her first involved that much imagination, I can't wait to hear future tales from her.