Bedtime Stories

One of my favorite times of the day with Andrew is our bedtime routine. No matter how crazy the day was, I love the calmness of laying in his bed reading stories together. He has quite a variety of books and goes through phases with his favorites. Here are some of the books we've been enjoying lately:

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey - For one of Andrew's baby showers, I was given a collection of classic books, this one included. I doubted that Andrew would sit through it (it's rather lengthy), and I don't have a memory of reading it often, so I put it on a bookshelf and forgot about it. Andrew pulled it out one day for bedtime and has fallen in love with it. There was about a three-week period where we read it twice a day - before nap and bedtime. While at first I was 'iffy' about this book, I quickly fell in love with Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and their crew while reading about them with Andrew. Andrew loves the book and likes to ask which duckling is Quack. I didn't realize how much I loved the book until I found a copy while I was organizing my classroom library. I read through it and got warm fuzzies just thinking about reading it with Andrew.

This is the face you get when you try to make him pose with the book instead of reading it to him!

Being silly!

The Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney - A couple years ago one of my students brought a Llama Llama book for me to read in class and I was instantly in love. I've been collecting them for Andrew and I think we have them all (except this new one). Andrew loves little Llama's antics, and I love that he can relate to a lot of the feelings and situations. He will often start reciting parts of the books when we are in similar situations. One day we were finished shopping and he goes, "out to parking, not too far, where did Mama leave the car?" Silly, smart boy! My favorite is Llama Llama Red Pajama, but Andrew seems to prefer Llama Llama Mad at Mama. (Is he trying to tell me something?)

Some other favorites of the moment:

• Pete the Cat books 
• Anything by Doreen Cronin and Betsey Lewin (we have Giggle, Giggle, Quack and Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type) I love these books!
• His story Bible (which he calls the Jesus book... although I believe there is some confusion on his part - he seems to think that Jesus is anyone with long hair. We figured this out when he was telling us about Jesus and the snake that likes to eat apples. Jesus in his story=Eve) 
• Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert - One of my favorite things about this book is that Andrew will point to the fruits or vegetables on the page that he thinks are pretty or interesting and ask me about them. "Mommy, what's that?" "Well, that's kohlrabi (or radicchio, or quince, or some other obscure fruit or vegetable)." "Oh, I love kohlrabi!" This book has been neat because it has exposed him to lots of different fruits and vegetables. Although he doesn't really eat a huge variety of them (especially the vegetables), he loves to point them out at the grocery store.

Apparent my reading a book face is not good for pictures! Jonathan took tons of pictures this night, and I look crazy or angry or scary in almost all of them.

I'm so blessed that Andrew loves to read and that we can enjoy this time together. I'm already excited about the not-too-distant future when Ben can join in our bedtime cuddling/reading. I cherish this time, and I hope we can continue this (with possibly different selections of books) for many years in the future!