When we don’t have to rush story time, it’s my favorite part of the day. Mainly because we did what we needed to during the day - worked, exercised, cleaned, laughed, played, argued, apologized, etc. Story time is the reward for a long day and we can all lay down in bed and dive into some books. It’s also a great time to chat about anything that needs an extra conversation from the day or teaching them about things we are reading in the books.

One particular evening, my kids wanted to read more books than usual. I usually have them pick a book each and if the book is super short, they can pick a second book in their set. My 5 year old daughter picks some Pokemon books that were short because they are really into it right now. My 4 year old son picks two Gerald and Piggy books he likes. Even though those books aren’t super super short, they were short enough and we had plenty of time to read them at night, so I said yes. Plus, I always want to reinforce their love of reading.

We read through the Gerald and Piggy books first and at the end of the first book, Piggy makes a joke about Gerald needing new glasses. It made my daughter crack up so much because it was one of the first times she was old enough to connect the dots to why the joke was funny in the book. She also wears glasses and I’m glad she didn’t find the joke offensive at all. It made her laugh really hard and I’m glad we had that little moment at night.

We also read the second Gerald and Piggy book and I pointed how where Gerald was having a bad attitude and how Piggy’s good attitude made a difference. I want my kids to recognize what a bad attitude looks like and to change their behavior. A lot of situations in life can be made slightly better (or even fixed) with a good attitude. We talked about it some more throughout the book and afterwards, chunked through the Pokemon books.

Those were small moments in time, but seeing the laughter and talking through a life lesson will hopefully continue to make a difference in their development. Nights like that evening continue to remind me of why I live story time. Also, to me, this is what parenting looks like - a series of small moments that over time, build character. We can’t expect kids to follow a rule and all of a sudden never break it. They don’t understand nuances and also sometimes forget whether things are a bad choice. They are still learning and it’s up to us to reinforce the right choices and character one small moment at a time.