Little House Story Time

I’ve know that Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world". But it’s been fun to see that in one aspect of our own little home. 

In the spring (last Spring, 2019), I was newly convicted about the importance of reading to our children every night at bed time. I have several degree is in early childhood education so I know the facts – I know the advantages proven to children whose parents read to them even 20 minutes each night. All that reading adds up day after day year after year. 

 Nevertheless, when bedtime rolled around each and every night, reading stories to the children was the last thing I wanted to do. I still had chores to finish, they always picked the same books over and over, and everyone crawled all over me to sit in my lap and see the pictures. Bedtime and stories was one of my least favorite times of the day. 

So, I decided I needed a change. If was going to start reading stories every night... and I knew the importance of doing so... we were going to read stories I wanted to read.

I started reading Little House in the Big Woods to my children over the summer. I told them they needed to stay in their beds and listen and there were not very many pictures so there was no reason to be in my lap. I promised to show them all of the pictures that were in the book, and we started. 

The first few chapters were a little rough as the children adjusted to the new routine, and they had plenty of questions about the very old-timey descriptions of Laura’s life in the big woods of Wisconsin, but they really liked the story. 

Now, about seven months later, we have read Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek, and we are several chapters into On the Shores of Silver Lake. I now love bedtime story time. 

All those months back, I decided that I wanted to enjoy story time if I was going to read every night and I knew I should read every night.  So although some of the language and history is over my children’s heads, story time/bedtime is a favorite now in this household.

Now, back to Ghandi.  

I pretty much put the kids to bed every night, but occasionally Hubby will. On those nights, the kids were excited that daddy was putting them to bed but bummed to miss a night of our story. So, Chris found his own chapter books to read with the kids.  Several have been about adventures through time in Colorado history, and now they’re reading the Magic Tree House series. 

I really have been the change I wanted to see in my household -- that my children love story time, are learning from the stories, are enjoying the stories, and it has carried over into how my husband does a bedtime routine as well. 

A few weeks ago, as we started On the Shores of Silver Lake, Jack the dog, who had been with the family since Wisconsin, passed away. It was a hard chapter for my children. We had to stop reading and let ourselves cry over the loss of Jack and then go find our dog, Lloydey and give him extra hugs and cry to his fur because we know someday our story will continue without him. 

This is the beauty of books and especially books read in childhood. To prepare my children with real heartache, for something that will happen in their life, but right now is just a very real story -- not real life yet.

I am so excited for these and so many other books I will get to read to them over the years.