Bedtime Stories

I have an affinity for children's books. In fact, there's a shelf in our home dedicated entirely to those that our children enjoyed for whatever reason or the ones we liked to read to them for whatever reason.

And last night my 4 year-old neice gave me the perfect opportunity to pull one off the shelf and read. Hey, she's going to be here for the rest of the week so there's no need to go all-out with more so early in her visit.

I chose Bentley and Egg. It won some award from the people who give out awards to children's books. The art is excellent and the story uses big words (like "pandemonium") and nice phrases (like "the ship sat amid ships shimmering") and has all the elements kids love: frogs, ducks, stuffed animals, drawing, singing and loads of imagination.

My neice liked having me read and listened to the story. It's a good one, too.

But what was really the highlight to me was that my 15-year-old and 13-year-old came into the room and listened to the story once they realized which one it was.

They made the faces in the pictures like we used to do.
They sang the songs to the tune we made up...and remembered most of the words.
They sat and listened, even if they weren't in the sight lines of the pictures.

And it made me glad that we read to them every night before bed time when they were 4-year-olds.

I think bedtime stories should be a Parents United official mandate. And I think there should be quality control on the reading list of which I, as benevolent dictator the organization, will oversee. Nominations will be accepted.

Tonight's agenda: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day. I'm already looking forward to it.