Would you like to guess how many times I have read a particular book to S this week? We’re talking, since last Sunday evening until this Sunday evening. Guesses? Admittedly, I haven’t actually tallied it myself but let’s see. Every evening x1. Sometimes a bonus reading if “Read me a story” didn’t get her to sleep and a second reading was required. Overnight wakes needing 2 or 3 readings. Thankfully these don’t happen every night but this week there would have been (thinking back) um 3 or 4. To be conservative in our estimations, let’s say that bonus evening readings number 3 and overnight wakes also number 3. By my calculations, this means that I have read Each Peach Pear Plum to S 16 times this week. Yes, I have read it sometimes while sitting on the floor and falling asleep over it but S always wakes me with a “Keep reading! Keep reading the story, mumma!”, or “Muuuuuum keep reading the stoooooooryyyyy”.

E has heard it a few times, too, on account of going to bed at the same time as S on nights after daycare. I have discovered that if I show S the pictures and then E the pictures, E gets really upset that I’m not reading HER the story. If I just hold the book so E can see the pictures, then S doesn’t hear the words. So I have learnt this week to just hold the book on my lap as I sit on the floor in between the bunk and the cot, and read it as if I am reading it to myself. I am so looking forward to the girls reading this during the day and actually spying the things to be spied. 

E has also asked for a story a few times at bedtime this week, then had a look through the bookshelf in the bedroom and made a selection. I have started reading her choice to her and after a few pages she has said, “No, not that one” and pulled out the Easter Egg Hunt pull the tab book which I gave her at her first Easter and is now missing nearly all of its flaps. This week she has absolutely loved it. 

Meanwhile, after a little break as she went all independent reader on me (which I love), C is back to needing me to read to her. Evening routine is now that she has a bath or shower straight after the younger two, then does her own reading or can be on the iPad with selected approved activities. Mathletics, Procreate, Patterned and Flood-It are all allowed. Hello Kitty Island Adventures is only for special occasions. Once I have two sleeping girls, I shower if I haven’t already then C and I do French on Duolingo (more than 100 days in a row so far!). This is followed by me reading to her. 

Currently we are reading What Katy Did. I read this when I was young – like, upper primary sort of young – and I just remember the result of the accident, really, and some of the vibe of the setting. Most of it, I am discovering, has blown out of my brain so it is like we are both reading it for the first time. We have both laughed and laughed at some parts, such as when the children are trying to give the impression of being already asleep after getting up to shenanigans while Aunt Izzie was out, or the reading of a story written by one of the children and then the critique that followed. I am cherishing having this snuggle time with C again. Even though she seems to be all elbows and knees right now, spending this quiet time with her as we read together all curled up on the sofa under my elephant blanket is one of my favourite parts of the day.