Bedtime Stories

Part 1

When it is bed time for Presley, Lora or I will read her a book, sing her a song, or tell her a story, or any combination of all of that including up to 5 books and 5 songs.  It really just depends on how early we get her to bed.  I will say that I usually stay with her an average of 20 minutes, while Lora is usually in there closer to 45 minutes.  Lora is obviously a much slower reader than I am. 

One thing neither of us will do more than one time is tell her a story.  Telling Presley a story is so hard because she will interrupt you and tell you what she wants to happen or correct you if she doesn't like the direction your story is headed.  I don't mind her help, but she will literally interrupt a story every 10 seconds.  Which leads to "Presley, do you want to tell the story?" or "Presley, this is my story, I'm telling it.  Just listen."

Here is an example:

Me:  Once upon a time there was a princess named Tinkerbell.

P1:  No, Butterfly.

Me:  Once upon a time there was a princess named Butterfly, and she had a friend named Dragonfly.

P1:  No, Caterpillar.

Me:  One upon a time there was a princess named Butterfly, and she had a friend named Caterpillar, and they liked to ride their horse named…….

P1:  Buttercup.

Me: …Buttercup.

Later in the story:

Me:  So Butterfly, Caterpillar and Buttercup crossed the grumpy old troll’s bridge…

P1:  And then they saw a monster.

Me:  And then they saw a monster, so they started to run from it.

P1:  No, the monster was nice.

Me:  Oh, so the monster was nice, so they went to play with it.

P1:  And the monster said watch out for the lion!

Me:  And the monster said watch out for the lion, so Butterfly, Caterpillar, Buttercup and the monster ran away from the lion.

(This cracked me up because the monster very well could have chased them, but instead the monster warned them about the lion that was going to chase them.)

Part 2

The other night Presley got a treat.  I had just finished putting Paxten down to bed, and I walked into Presley’s room right about the time that mommy was putting her to bed, and she asked if we could both put her night-night, and we did.  So there we lay.  I was next to the wall, Lora was on the outside of the bed, and Presley was right in between us.  I had an idea that we would tell a story to Presley, but instead of a normal story, I was going to tell a few parts of the story, then mommy would tell a few parts of the story.

As you can guess, as soon as we started telling the story, Presley immediately started correcting us.  As a matter of fact, she corrected mommy, so I told Presley that we were both going to leave if she kept interrupting mommy’s story.  So Presley turned on her side where she was facing me and began whispering in my ear what she wanted to happen next in the story.  I thought this was so funny.  Lora would say a few lines, then Presley would whisper in my ear what she wanted me to say, then I would say what she told me to say.  Then Lora would tell some more of the story, then again, Presley would whisper in my ear what she wanted to happen next.  Seriously, I thought this was sooooooooo very funny.  I was actually laughing while she was whispering stuff into my ear.  I had told her that if she interrupts mommy that we would not tell her the story, so instead she whispered into my ear what she wanted to happen.  We finished the story, and when Lora and I left the room, we all 3 had big smiles on our face.  It was a special unplanned impromptu moment, and I loved it.

I love my interrupting story time girl!