End of Day Stories

We do different things to end the day with the children.   They share a bedroom and at eleven-months apart in age, we've had them sleeping in one room since my daughter was three-months-old.   We think they enjoy sharing the space and building the bond that only siblings can have.   There are pros and cons to it of course, but one thing that works to our advantage is our nighttime routine.

With two children in one room, stories can be read together in their room.   My husband is our primary story-reader.   He loves reading stories to them.  He practiced reading the more challenging Dr. Seuss books before my children were even old enough to understand them (or at least that's how I tell the story.)

My children love stores of all type.   They can be picture books, in-depth stories or board books with only a few words per page.   They also like made up stories.   Again, my husband is the king of stories in our house and frequently comes up with something new and exciting I hear about the next day from the children.

One night recently, I was putting the children to bed.   My husband had gone off to the movies and I was sitting in the rocking chair, in the dark, in the children's room working on a story.    My children were helping though: my daughter told me the story was about someone named, "Boinger" (and that person was her, she said.)  I asked her if I was in the story and she said, "yes mom, you're 'The Nice Maker.'"  My son piped up, saying dad was a super hero named, "Jumper."  Jumper could do impressive things like jump very high.  I asked my son if he was in the story too and not surprisingly was told yes, and that he was called, "Lifter."   Lifter, he told me, was very strong and could lift lots of heavy things.

We had an imaginative time talking what our family of super heroes was out there doing before it was time for me to leave and them to go to sleep.

The Big Boy Update:  Last night I needed to run next door to drop off something to my neighbor.   As I was getting ready to go, my son said, "we'll miss you, mommy," in just the right intonation to make me feel like I was headed off on an extended safari expedition, possibly never to return.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Coloring inside the lines.   My daughter is getting better at fine motor control and the pincer grasp.   She was working hard at dinner tonight to color in segments in a children's menu drawing.   She was still going over the lines, but she was doing better than I've seen her do before, especially since she was "coloring" an area solid, instead of "scribbling" in a general area on the paper.

Fitness Update:  Our trainer has us to pull-ups from time to time.   I can do some, but I seem to always need a bit of guidance (read help) to do them.   I can do multiple reps, I just can't get my body up without a little weight-reduction from the trainer.   I'm getting better over time.