Try to Find The Time To Read To Your Kids

It Feels Hard - And As A Mum I Get It - But Trust Me, It's Worth It In So Many Ways!
It’s hard sometimes to muster the energy to read to the kiddies, to make all the farm animal noises, do the actions of a T-Rex falling in the river or to simply just rhyme without getting tongue twisted.

But it’s worth it mums and dads, so very much worth it!!

I can only write this from experience, our experience with Little Miss 4 through her short life.

Watching.

Noticing.

Listening.

Watching her hang on every word as her dad reads to her.

Watching her snuggle into her dad (he does the majority of the reading in our house) and enjoy the time bonding with him as this time is all about just her, her dad and books.

Watching the stories leap from the pages of the books and into her world as she fly’s through the house as a bird, or bumble bee, or fairy, or butterfly, or scoots out on all fours as a kitty cat up to me and greets me with a big MIIIIIOWWWW!

Noticing her start to interact with the story as she gets older. Start to ask questions about what she is seeing on the page or ask “what if” questions that can lead to silly and funny conclusions.
Noticing her imagination expand as the “what if” game is now a car time favourite – “what if cow’s could fly mum – wouldn’t that be funny?” insert hysterical laughter, now your turn she chants as I scramble to think of a “what if “ to rival hers……”what if chickens could talk Lexi – wouldn’t THAT be funny?”. Yip – it was!

Listening to her talk, to her chatter away making up the most amazing and crazy stories of her own.

Listening to how clear her speech is (when she’s not too excited – then I think only dogs can understand that high pitched fast squeak that emits from that little person) and her use of words – words she has learnt from her books (and her father explaining what they mean)

And for me, most importantly, noticing that sometimes she asks for specific books – maybe on an emotion or a situation – and realising that she is trying to understand something. Something she might be feeling, or going through or even seeing someone else go through and she wants to understand.

So you see it’s not all about romping stomping T-Rex’s or trains going toot toot – it’s also about lots of little messages getting through in a language that they can understand. It’s about understanding emotions, or situations that arise and way’s that they (or in truth us all) can deal with them. It’s about a little bit of quality one on one (or one on two, or three….) time spent with our kids in this fast paced tech loaded world we all now live in. It’s another great way of communicating with these little human being sponges (especially if, like me, you sometimes can’t find the right words to explain something to them).

It’s why I choose my books so carefully – sure there are the odd funny make no sense books about farts or so forth, but 90% of them have a wee message, explanation, experience or emotion woven carefully into a witty or beautiful or (my favourite) rhyming story.

It’s also what lead me to write my own little book. Yip, crazy right! But it helped – not only her but me too. My little book titled “My Heart’s So Full Of Love” was written when one day I was a little up and down, awfully tired and trying to hold it together. Happy one minute and crying the next (we’ve all been there right mumma’s). And I turned around (after a particularly growly session) and saw this little face looking up at me, all of about 2yrs old and trying desperately to understand what was going on with her mother and wondering if she still loved her. My heart broke – and all I could do was say sorry and hug her, but I couldn’t find the words to explain. So that night I wrote her a poem, about all the different faces mum wears. About the fact that even though mum (or dad) wear these faces we still love her with all our heart.

It helped.

So very much.

And how did I know – because when I’m grumpy, or crappy, or tired or wired my little girl now walk’s up to me and says “mum, even when you’re grumpy I still love you”

Music to my ears.

And not only does this little story help the wee ones in our lives – I’ve discovered from feedback that it also helps us parents to know that it’s ok – that we all wear these faces and it’s normal, it doesn’t mean we love them any less…..it just means for that wee moment in time we were feeling a little worried or hurried, or hadn’t quite had our coffee yet.

So please, please, please mums and dads, nanas and poppas, uncles and aunties – take the time to read to the littlies in your life, you won’t regret it and they will thank you for it (maybe not verbally but defiantly with cuddles)

And if you would like to start your own little library then maybe this will help – use the code READTOME at the checkout and receive 20% off our kid’s books.

And Remember:

The more you read the more things you know
The more you learn the more places you’ll go.
Dr Seuss