how to prepare your children for major events

Since March is National Reading Month and since my children have been blessed enough to have been born into a house of readers, I decided that they needed to prepare for our upcoming events with, yes, more reading materials.

I was really getting worried that SweetPea's flower girl book wasn't going to arrive in time but thankfully, it showed up on our doorstep this morning at precisely the perfect time for me to not throw all the toys in the house away. Reading is an awesome relaxation/reset button for us. Kind of like a mental yoga. It not only forces us to sit still and listen to each other when we are all ready to snap but it gives us something to focus on and learn from other than just our own problems.

preparedness reading

I will say though, there needs to be a better young children's selection of historical books out there. I picked one called Susanna of the Alamo to teach SweetPea about what she would be seeing on vacation. The book said that it could target grades kinder through fifth so I figured why not? Holy bananas, that book was long, ponderous, without enough pictures and with too many "words" for a kinder/preschooler. But it did the job well enough... SweetPea walked away with a small understanding of what the Alamo was and what happened there.

The more fitting book was definitely her Pinkalicious flower girl story. I think that we might have found another series to start looking into for her. I loved reading that one to her and Pork and they both giggled and pointed at the pictures, making it a GOOD story.

I also managed to sneak away some books for vacation today. Two new Lalaloopsy stories and two stories for Pork (Caps for Sale and Corduroy). I cannot wait to snuggle up in a hotel room with them and unwind from our vacation with some good reads.