Author: nrwatson17

I’ve been an anxious wreck pretty much as long as I can remember. I don’t remember the last time I actually had a comfort zone. Then I had kids. That introduced a whole new flavour of apprehension and worry to the mix. Then I had to send my sweet, innocent child who did not ask to be brought into this hellish world to kindergarten where he would be away from me for the first time in the midst of a global pandemic. By this point, I’m basically just the little purple dude from Pixar’s Inside Out.

September 2, 2021

My smart, outgoing little boy could not be more ready to go on that warm September morning, decked out in his special button up shirt he and his Nana picked out for the first day of school. He skipped the whole 350 meters from our door to the school. I held his little hand tightly, trying not to cry, dragging my feet. My husband and our younger son amped him up as they followed us, matching our kindergartener’s energy.  My husband caught my eye for a second, but dared not hold my gaze any longer, knowing that the tear that was welling up in my eye would escape, and all hell would break loose.

I had been dreading this day all summer as the Alberta government had played jump rope with school closures and all kinds of restrictions and public health measures. It broke my heart that I was not going to be able to see the classroom where my son would start his academic journey. I hadn’t seen the inside of the school at all. My husband had, but not since he attended there some 20 years ago. It felt so foreign to give my child over to an establishment where I had never even set foot inside.

The Worst Part? It’s All the Worst Part!

I felt so unprepared. The pandemic had already robbed us of pre-school & playdates. I had spent the first 5 years of my son’s life, up until these moments, being responsible for his well-being at every moment of every day, and the realization that I was trusting him to strangers behind these brick walls for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, was honestly terrifying. My only comfort on this day was that my son didn’t know that this wasn’t a “normal” first day of school experience.

We approach the school and give our son big hugs and tell him how much we love him, and that we’re excited for him to have a great day, making new friends and learning. I relinquish my son to his teacher with a brave face and watch them disappear into the unknown. As soon as they are out of sight, tears roll down my face. Before we are off school property, my younger son tells us he misses his brother and joins me in crying the whole way home. Seeing my toddler upset just makes me even more upset. My husband carries him and holds my hand.

We Survived The First Drop Off

My younger son and I make cookies while I push through an anxiety induced migraine and try not to look at the clock. 3 hours later, we go to pick up my older son, a full-fledged kindergartener now.

I wonder how he’ll be changed, after a whole 3 hours in the public school system. The students are dismissed one by one as the teacher spots their respective parent. It’s my son’s turn, and he football tackles me. He’s big for his age, I’m not a very big woman, and he’s really excited to see me. He excitedly tells me all about his day as we walk home.

All That Worry for Nothing, As Per Usual

Today, I had our second parent/teacher conference call of the year (he’s crushing it, by the way) and it’s caused me to reflect a little on that first day of school, and how difficult it was for me. In all honesty, while it still irks me that I don’t know what his classroom looks like, or have never been inside his school, I’m not sure that it would have made me any more ready to let him go that day.  It still comforts me that my son doesn’t really know any different that his Covid kindergarten experience wasn’t “normal.” It’s just our kindergarten experience.

And in so many ways, it was a normal first day of school, wasn’t it? An excited child, only slightly nervous, as he later confessed to me. An anxious mother, not ready to trust her child to someone else, but knowing it was time. That’s the part we’re going to remember, just like every other mother and child going to school for the first time!

It makes me feel a little silly for being so anxious about him starting school in the first place (as I often do after the thing I was so anxious about passes… ) I knew he would crush it!

My younger son is about to turn 4, and we’re grappling with the idea of sending him to pre-school. Oh hey, Fear… what’s up?

As our class has progressed, we have explored different forms of digital storytelling and not necessarily what makes them different, but what makes them the same. There are fundamental storytelling principles that are applied to all story formats from epic novels to GIFs and literally everything in between. One of these principles is the 4 I’s of Engaging Storytelling that Ashley Fell talks about in her 2017 TED Talk, “Why storytelling is so powerful in the digital era.”

One of the things we love about storytelling is that it is inherently visual, even without pictures. Humans are by nature visual creatures, and we process visuals 60,000 faster than text. It makes sense that our brains want to turn things into pictures. Add ever-advancing technology and diminishing attention spans to the mix, and its not a stretch to see the challenge in presenting information to today’s audience. But through engaging storytelling, you can capture your target audience and get your point across. I’ve even made a picture for you!*

Bedtime in the Watson household. Not my favourite time. I live-tweeted bedtime tonight because instead of me handling my boys’ bedtime routine, my husband did the bulk of it while I got to take a breather. It allowed me to see it as a story featuring my favourite characters, and when it comes to finding a simple universal story to tell, who can’t relate to kids who don’t really want to go to bed?

My husband and I parent well together, but I as a work-from-home mother, I would definitely be considered the primary caregiver in our household. It’s a dynamic that works well for our family, but by the time bedtime rolls around, Mom’s exhausted. Dad gets home from work with fresh parenting legs at 6:30 and we put our young children to bed at 7:30 when the big guy has Kindergarten in the morning, so bedtime is Dad’s time to shine!

Using a Twitter thread, you can see a clear beginning, when Dad calls bedtime, a long drawn out middle where my sons delay going to bed for over an hour, and then and ending where they lose a high-stakes wrestling match and finally go to sleep. Yeah, I said a wrestling match. Check out the story here:

It’s bedtime in my house. I honestly despise bedtime. The kids are never ready for it, despite our solid routine, and the warnings. It’s always a struggle & quite honestly, as a work from home mom, by the bedtime rolls around, I am just burnt out. #EXSM3989

— Natasha Watson (@nrwatson17) February 22, 2022

The 8 Point Story Arc

Tonight at bedtime, my husband got the boys to brush their teeth and get their pyjamas with only a minimal struggle. This is our stasis. Our everyday life. Then, when it came time to tuck them in, our 3-year-old couldn’t find his security object – his “Stinky pillow.” It’s this little cuddle pillow with baby Dumbo on it that he has had since he was born, and he has not spent a night with out it. “Stinky” missing is our trigger. And man, is it ever a trigger. It’s a trigger from a storytelling standpoint, and for a 3-year-old’s meltdown.

So begins our quest. The quest for “Stinky pillow.” Dad and the boys look for the pillow, but can’t find it, so I go to look for it. In the meantime (surprise!) Dad and the boys have a wrestling match before bed to try and take the little guy’s mind off of his missing pillow while I look for it. I get annoyed that my husband is wrestling with the kids at bedtime and getting them riled up instead of doing relaxing things (like, I don’t know? Read a bedtime story?!) and walk away to calm down. I collect myself and remind myself that bedtime is Dad’s time to do things his way.

Dad and the boys are having a wrestling match. At bedtime. I am thrilled about this. #EXSM3989 pic.twitter.com/JwIdZEjtg9

— Natasha Watson (@nrwatson17) February 22, 2022

Then I hear my 5-year-old doing his ring announcer voice. He introduces himself and his little brother as the “Brothers of the Instructions” rather than the “Brothers of Destruction.” That’s The Undertaker and Kane, by the way. Thinking of my 5- and 3-year-old sons being associated with anything to do with instructions gets the better of me, and I start laughing. My son thinks I’m laughing AT him, so he gets mad at me. My husband knows why I’m laughing, so to avoid explaining something my son won’t understand, he says “if Mommy won’t stop laughing, she has to be the referee for the next match.”

I agree on the stipulation that if Dad wins the match, it’s lights out. This is my critical choice. And once I wouldn’t always make. But tonight I did. In our story’s climax, the boys decide that it’s a fair stipulation, and even though it is now way past bedtime, and I would usually be irritated that everyone is still awake, I join in and play with my family. Of course, in our reversal, Dad “wins” the match, and the boys finally agree to go to bed. I am then left to reflect on how grateful I am to have my husband handle bedtime, which is my resolution.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf, taller than a tree.
Toki Wartooth, not a bumblebee.
William Murderface, Murderface, Murderface.
Pickles, the drummer, doodily doo. (Ding-dong, doodily, doodily, doo.)
Nathan Explosion!

My friends, let me introduce you to Metalocalypse. This adult cartoon follows a fictional death metal band, Dethklok, that has become exceedingly more popular than the Beatles ever were, to the point that they are now one of the world’s largest economies, and now a group of government officials has set out to destroy them. In every episode, the band is unknowingly thwarting this group of evil government leaders trying to destroy them, while they just keep trying to record new albums and go on more tours. Not to mention the show is filled with incredible original music, written and performed by the show’s creator, Brendon Small.

Look Mom, I’m on TV!

There are several reasons why I love this story. It caught my attention right away to see a subculture that is not often represented in cartoon form. As a metalhead myself (and wife of a death metal guitarist) it was incredibly cool to see our subculture so eloquently captured and only slightly satirized. It’s also jampacked with other metal culture references, right down to censoring swearing with guitar pinch harmonics. In any case, it makes this story relatable and engaging, at least to me!

Another stand out point that makes the story engaging and memorable is the sheer ridiculousness of the premise of the show. Even among metalheads and people who enjoy heavier music, death metal is pretty niche, so the idea that this band is more popular than Beatles ever were, or that the world’s economy revolves around them is outrageous. It’s definitely one way to engage and hold an audience, as Alison Macadam touches on in Beyond the 5 W’s: What should you ask before starting a story?.

Deconstructing “Dethtroll”

As if finding an episodic television show with a death metal band as protagonists wasn’t enough to draw me in as it is, solid storytelling structure comes in to hold it up. Like all good stories, each episode (and I have watched them all several times) follows Kenn Adams’ story spine. Let’s take a look at how episode 1.4, “Dethtroll,” fits this structure.

The band is doing day to day rock star stuff, such as drinking in a hot tub and realizing they have signed a terrible endorsement for horribly inconvenient to use dethphones, while drunk.

THEN their manager informs them that to go to Finland to apologize for behaving badly on their last tour. BECAUSE OF THAT they wrote a new song for them as an apology, but they wrote it from an ancient folklore text, reciting a spell that summons a lake troll who wreaks havoc on the nation of Finland.

BECAUSE OF THAT they need to learn how to play acoustically to put the troll back to sleep (which they don’t want to do, because “it’s totally lame and not metal.”) But they do, for the good of the nation of Finland. The troll is almost lulled to sleep when Murderface’s dethphone start’s ringing, breaking everyone’s concentration. BECAUSE OF THAT the troll is still awake, and screaming, and sets its sights on Dethklok. Murderface, enthralled in his phone call, is oblivious to the troll and is just annoyed at the racket it is making. BECAUSE OF THAT, he hurls the heavy, spiky phone that is inexplicably equipped with a grappling hook right down the troll’s throat. UNTIL FINALLY the troll is killed by swallowing the huge, unnecessarily weaponized phone, and EVER SINCE THEN peace is restored in Finland, and they accept Dethklok’s apology.

What Do You Take with You?

Yes, the events of these stories are ridiculous, like summoning a lake troll. But like Macadam says in Beyond the 5 W’s, we rarely remember the entire story. It’s particular quotes, scenes, and in the case of “Dethtroll,” personally, songs. Through the power of digital storytelling and the technology at our fingertips, we can easily add elements like visuals and music to our storytelling, making them more memorable. I know I will definitely have “Awaken” stuck in my head for the next few days now.