Being the smug middle-class parents that we are, we read the girls a bedtime story every night. Dh and I consider ourselves to be fairly competent at reading out loud but the girls vote with their feet (and hands) and generally crawl off and do something else while we’re working through a Mr Men or Kipper story. It’s difficult not to feel a little insulted...
My friend and her partner(? Boyfriend? Significant other?) came to stay at the weekend and in return for helping me out with the girls (dh was working) I fed them copious amounts of food and alcohol. I also made them play board games with me and they *let* me win at Cranium. I’m a really bad board game loser so it was best all round really.
I digress. Where was I? Ah yes. Bedtime stories. I gave story-reading duties to my friend’s p...b......sig...oh, I don’t know. Anyway, him. He read ‘Don’t let the pigeon stay up late’, in which a pigeon thinks of numerous excuses for not going to bed. G clearly took this to heart as she decided to be an absolute sod monkey during the night and refused to sleep. Not good after we’d been on the wine. Did the girls crawl off halfway through to story? No they did not! They sat on the floor and gave the story their absolute attention. Humpf!
So, where have we been going wrong? I have come to the conclusion that we need to be more dramatic and LOUD in order to keep the girls’ attention. I have been trying to incorporate more arm-sweeping and dramatic pauses and volume changes into my bedtime story performance but I fear it isn’t quite the same. I’m more Alan Carr than Stephen Fry.
Perhaps I should ask a number of celebrities to read bedtime stories to the girls. Ian Mckellen and Derek Jacobi leap to mind. How about Victoria Wood and Julie Walters? Terry Wogan? Ooh, that’s got me thinking now.
Anyway, as much as we all love the pigeon story, we have to stop reading it because G doesn’t sleep after we read it to her. Perhaps we’ll have a hot-dog party instead*
*This will only make sense if you’ve read the story...