Bedtime In Crazy Town

Caught in the act

 Bedtime for the kids is typically between the 7 and 8 o’clock hour of the night. While I give Sammy her bath Matthew is in charge of picking up his toys.  Sometimes I have to remind him of this while getting Sammy dressed after her bath.Picking out bedtime stories comes next. Matthew will pick out more than he can carry and Sammy enjoys pulling them off the bookshelves. She will sit patiently for the first story but then gets fidgety and is either put to bed or down to chew on a board book while we finish the rest. 

We have gotten into the habit of writing down the books that we read so that he can earn a new badge from the library. Every twenty books with a grown up earns a new one. He recently acquired his very own library card too, the big shot five-year-old that he is. 

Still searching for the perfect book

Some of our favorite bedtime stories lately:

Interactive

Tickle Monster – Matthew is always the tickle monster much to his and Sammy’s delight.

Can You Make A Scary Face? -  About a bug trying to chase away a frog. In the end our scary face scares the bug into wishing the frog would come back.  

There is a Monster t the End of the Book – In this classic Sesame Street book Grover warns readers to not turn the page because there is a monster ( which ends up being him) on the last page.

 We Are In A Book – the characters are IN a book and they quickly realize they don’t want the book to end. 

Board Books

All the Hippos Go Beserk – Matthew loved this book as a baby and now Sammy does too. One hippo alone once more, misses the other 44.

Bedtime Books

Berenstain Bears Bad Dream –Brother bear is very relatable to Matthew especially in this book where Space Grizzles are similar to Star Wars characters 

Other

 LEGO books – Catch that crook! Defend that Castle! Fight the fire!  

Magic Tree House Books- Like any good story this one starts at the library. Another boy named Matthew met my Matthew and the two got to chatting. Aside from having the same name they were both 4 ½ . When the other Matthew asked which Magic Tree house book he was on this Matthew was stumped. We had not heard of these books before and decided to check them out. They are a chapter book series about a brother and a sister who find a magical tree house in the woods which takes them on many adventures. 

Or maybe it was Matthew that she was looking for

After story time they are tucked into bed. At this time Sammy does not have a favorite blanket or stuffed animal but will yell if not fed one last bottle before being put to bed. Matthew sleeps with an assortment of stuffed friends and some nights will flip through books using the reading lamp clipped to his bed. Most nights, especially after an extra busy day he falls asleep almost immediately.

Scaredy Squirrel

Scaredy Squirrel came home from school to visit us over the weekend.  It was our turn to host the anxious stuffed picture book character. He came with a bag of acorns to eat, two of his books, and a travel log to record and add pictures of his weekend adventures in. Everywhere we went Scaredy Squirrel came with us. Then on Monday his teacher read the updated travel log to the class during circle time.

My Little Llamas

We are big fans of Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama books. When Matthew was nine-months-old he screamed in delight each time I turned the pages to Llama Llama Red Pajama. We took that book with us everywhere. Then one day Grandma saw a second Llama Llama book came out and picked us up a copy. This time Llama Llama was Mad at Mama. Countless times I have quoted the books to him, “I think shopping’s boring too- but at least I’m here with you” Or, “Mama Llama’s always near, even if she’s not right here.” We now own five Llama Llama books and each one is a perfect read for one occasion or another.

Recently we’ve been curling up to read Llama Llama home with Mama, because it seems that at least one of us has had a cold these past three weeks. Some of the pages from our old favorites are torn and taped back together from when Matthew was first learning how to turn book pages. Now he gently scolds Sammy to be careful with these same books when she tries to turn the pages. I wonder if she will one day call them Yaya Yaya books like Matthew did when he was leaning to talk

Finger Painting Friday

Months ago I picked up this book at a library sale and tucked it away for the middle of winter.  Finger painting with a book feels more official somehow. 

Snowmen At Night

The books

Cutting out Darth Vader alarm clock

Story hour with Sammy

Our Snowmen | Lego Star Wars At Night

We first heard the book Snowmen At Night during my blissful stint of unemployment during story hour at Borders one Thursday morning. Matthew and his friend Celia were Sammy’s age and sat on our laps while Melanie and I drank hot cocoa meant for the children old enough to do a craft after the story. After story hour we would often lay out a blanket in the history section and let the kids roll around while we chatted over our second (paid for) cups of cocoa.

Nowadays I am at work on Thursday mornings and Borders has closed. We still have our happy memories and a collection of books leftover from our Thursday morning story hour days. Determined to give Sammy a similar experience, we did a Snowmen At Night story hour in our home, followed by a craft. She fell asleep and Matthew was sidetracked cutting out things from the magazine he wanted instead of creating a nighttime scene for his snowman. Things didn't go exactly as I had planned but it was still an enjoyable time!

Our Snowy Day

We spent one afternoon outside in the snow building a snowman, singing to him, as Matthew believed this would make him come to life, and playing football. Once we went back inside we warmed up with some hot cocoa and one of our favorite winter books, ‘Snowmen at Night’. 

Paper Mache

I knew something that we could do with all the scrap paper (i.e. catalogs, old school newsletters) that piled up around our home. We made paper mache Halloween Decorations. Matthew opted to make a scary mask and I made Frank the monster from a picture book we like to read together called,  Frank was a Monster who wanted to Dance.

There was some drama in the making of this craft as Matthew did not understand we would need to wait overnight for the paste to dry, we heard the sound of thunder that threatened the future of our masterpieces drying outdoors, and I needed to make homemade paint at the last second because we didn’t have all the colors that we needed on hand. 

In the end the craft was a success, not only did we recycle but we also had fun. Plus with our new decorations our house looks a little extra spooky in time for Halloween.

Lion Cookies

If I had to pick one book to read to the kids each night it would be The Library Lion. I picked this book out for Matthew as a birthday present earlier this year. It’s a hand illustrated story about a Lion that is allowed to visit the library just as long as he doesn’t roar. He ends up breaking this rule when someone gets hurt because he needs to catch the attention a more villainous librarian. He then believes that he is banned from the library for breaking the rules and doesn’t return until the villainous librarian tracks him down to apologize and explain to the lion and little readers of the story that sometimes  it is okay to break the rules if someone is in danger. 

The last time that we took this book off the shelf we practiced our best lion roars and made Library Lion cookies using sugar cookies, M&M’s, and chow mien noodles. Sammy was noticeably wishing she could take a bite of one as she sat on my lap while we decorated them.  

Playing School

Matthew carries his desk chair out from his bedroom. He drags it to the spot in front of his chair exposing the underside of the front door rug in the process. 

“It’s circle time,” he announces.  Dutifully I sit on the floor with Samantha next to me in her bouncy seat. As class helper I had been instructed to fill out the attendance sheet. 

Aside from Samantha and I the other classroom pupils are of the stuffed animal variety. Matthew takes out a red sword to show us and in a bossy tone asks, “Now what is this used for? Does anyone know?” 

After a long visual tour of swords we move on to story time. He takes a book called 1, 2, 3 Pop off the shelf and ‘reads’ it to us.  The book pages are illustrations with sight numbers but he makes up the words to go along with the pages.

The teacher

Circle time

Attendance list

 Matthew tapes a line made  cut from construction paper to the wall. “Now it’s time for below the line.  What are some things that are above the line and some things that are way at the bottom of the line?” This is an exercise they do at his real school to set expectations and rules. 

After a brainstorm session on this topic Samantha is starting to get hungry and starts to suck on her hand.  “We need to take a break now, “ I glance at the clock to see that it’s already past dinnertime.

“Okay,” Matthew puts his scissors down. “School is all over but come back tonight for our opening house.”

Books And Baseball

I love a good library book sale. I realize that I say that the same way some people might speak of steak. Feel free to replace the word “book” with “steak” for the rest of this paragraph if it helps you better understand. I love that there never seems to be enough room for all the orphaned books lined haphazardly in cardboard boxes on top of and under rows of card tables. Then there is this careful dance between neighbors and strangers leaning over one another to take a book, or excusing oneself to crawl below the table to leaf through a box of books that caught their eye.

At this particular book sale, on a hot and sticky morning in August, I am making out like a bandit. The brown paper shopping bag that I’m carrying is stuffed with a bunch of novels for myself, an old issue of Craft magazine that I haven’t read, some classic books of my childhood, Corduroy, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny for Matthew, and a dessert cookbook that has something to do with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. As I am shoving in a John Feinstein book that I think Bob will enjoy, my bag starts to tear giving me the cue that it is time for me to go, otherwise I could very well spend the day there.

When I arrive at home it starts to rain hard even though the sun is still shinning. Bob approves of my book choices for him and starts to flip through the beginning pages of the Feinstein one. Matthew snuggles up next to me with a Thomas the Tank Engine book that I knew he would have picked out himself. On the inside of the front cover there is a handwritten note, “Dear Ryan, Merry Xmas 2004! Your cousins…” Yet another reason I love library books sales, for the little surprises of owning a book secondhand.

Aside from being bookworms our family has other pastimes, namely sports. We took Matthew to his first professional baseball game, Worcester Tornadoes vs. the Brocton Rox, in the evening. Matthew held our hands in the parking lot but once he heard the crowd cheer, we arrived at the first inning, he let go to clap his hands too. When we sat down in our seats, he looked at the field and said, “Baseball cards?”

I would need to remember the cuteness of that moment to center me when he later drove his matchbox fire tuck through a melted puddle of ice cream on the ground and then licked it.

“So who won the game?” A co-worker asks a couple days later after I mention, well, shamelessly brag that that Matthew stayed through all nine innings of the game.

“Umm…” I can’t remember.

What I can remember is that it was the night that Matthew learned the baseball chant, “Charge!” I also remember that it started to lightly rain in the ninth inning but the fireworks show scheduled for after the game still went off without a hitch. That night Bob, Matthew, and I sat in the rain on a warm summer night watching fireworks in the distance.

I would have to say that we won the game.