editors' tips: bedtime tales
Our bedtime routine with our older son Henry goes as follows: my husband, Chris, reads him a story or two and I make one up while tickling his back. My story always involves a character called the Baby Dragon, who is usually separated from his mom, and a boy named Henry, who becomes the dragon's guardian and savior and eventually reunites the Baby Dragon with his mother. The recurrence of "a boy named Henry," or the idea that his namesake could appear in the third-person, somehow never gets old. And whether the characters have to take a magic carpet ride or a dozen balloons to find the Mommy Dragon, I infuse the stories with enough details from Henry's real life that he recognizes them. I think I think the key is to give equal weight to the magical and the quotidian so that kids see their lives as something special.
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The best tip I have is something that my book club of over 30 mom's read, "The Book of Mom" by Taylor Wilshire is the perfect summer read and now a best-seller. This laugh out loud novel about a stay-at-home mom that crashes and burns out loses her passion to life and how she gets it back is the best book. We all loved it and that never happens. This book is loaded with all the things Oprah preaches for a more balanced life. Why don't you have it in your magazine? We found out about it in People mag.