The Evolution of the Bedtime Story

First, let me say that we have pretty much always read bedtime stories to you (even when you clearly didn't understand and weren't interested) and, once you got into them, you got WAY into them. However, as happens with most precocious children, your tastes have changed over time... dare I say, yours have gotten more refined with age?

Pretending to read on cue for the camera. Good boy!

Anyhoo, your first real story was Where Is Baby's Belly Button? This was soon followed by Where is Baby's Mommy? The premise of both is similar -- flap lifting, several frustating pages of finding the wrong things, prize finally awaits you on the last page -- the only difference between the two are the types of items to be identified. You loved these books.

The next step up were books by Sandra Boynton, specifically, Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs and the Going to Bed Book.  These are short, rhyming, sing-songy and filled with fun words and adjectives. Imagine my surprise when you busted out with the word, "exercise," on the one day during my entire pregnancy that I decided to exercise!  That night, I realized where it came from -- one of these books. Ahh, learning.

Soon after (not sure when - my mind is a little hazy these days given that all the blood in my body is flowing to my core to nourish your not-yet-fully-baked baby brother) we ventured into the land of bigger, longer, more word-dense books.  The first one of these that comes to mind for me is everyone's favorite rhyming story. Yes, you guessed it: The Cat in the Hat. The first few readings were touch and go but within days you were hooked. And then mommy and daddy had to tagteam the chore, er, I mean privilege, of reading this book to you EVERY night.... for weeks and weeks on end. I think we all may have had it memorized by the time you tolerated the mere suggestion of adding other books to the evening repertoire.

Another favorite that came on the scene around the same time: The Best Nest. Perhaps the most awesome part of this book is that Daddy made up a terrible tune for Mr. Bird's song, which you two would sing every night. Cacophony would be an overstatement, but let's just say neither of you would have made it to Hollywood on American Idol.

For a period of time, these two books were rotated pretty much exclusively. Then, one day.... you discovered your love of bears.  Beady Bear, to be more specific (yes, by Don Freeman). For a book written, like, 50 years ago, it certainly still stands the test of time (except for the whole reading the "evening papers" thing -- who gets the morning paper let alone the evening paper anymore???).

After Beady, we started introducing more books, more faster to give our nights a little more variety. This strategy worked; you accepted most of them.  Some of these new staples have included: Alfred the Bear (another oldie but goodie), the Sam stories (Sam's Bath, Sam's Cookie), Knuffle Bunny ("aggle flaggle klaggle!!") and your latest favorite, The Little Red Caboose (which echoes your current love of all things Thomas the Train). The latter has tons of detail to its pictures.  Apparently in this little town, every freaking woodland creature comes out to watch the train go by. Also, there is a camp of Native Americans just outside of the clearly much safer white village. Interesting.

So there you have it: your life in books (so far). You're welcome!