Our goodnight ritual

 

"The goodnight ritual" as we always called it, is one of my happiest memories of my daughter's childhood. I think she looks back on it fondly too. Each night after washing up and getting ready for bed, my husband, myself, and our daughter would settle in to her bed to read a picture book or two. Dad, although he often fell asleep part way through, enjoyed it as well. I recall he used to ask me, "will you still read to me even when she's grown?"  Well it's now 25 years later and no, I do not read to him! But at the time we used to both enjoy the books and were often impressed at the high caliber of children's books we got from the library. I mean there were some we didn't care for but that she loved (Richard Scarry, Lowly Worm and the infinite annoying details of those books comes to mind) but for the most part we found many we all enjoyed. I loved reading classics that I recalled fondly from my own childhood (Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal).

But the real highlight was the last part of the ritual, what we called "Once upon a time". It was her own personal story and involved me starting with the exact same phrasing every night:  "Once upon a time there was a little girl named L_____ E____ O______ and she lived at 124 Q__________ St with her mommy and daddy who loved her very very much. And on this particular day, she____________________."  At this point I would improvise and tell about some aspect of her day. It was easy on days where we did something in particular, like attended a birthday party or went to the beach. But some days we did nothing special at all and I would have to rack my brain to come up with something, anything. "And on this particular day we saw some ants on the deck." It didn't matter, she loved it. 

By the way, the second picture above, with the quote about reading, is not there because I think high ACT scores (do they even still use them?) and academic achievement are the end all and be all. But because I do think reading is more important than all those other activities listed, in helping a child to have a satisfying, enjoyable and successful life. I am grateful that my parents passed their love of reading on to me.