A Bedtime Story and A Tuck In

This evening Daddy isn't at home, but at work. I don't mind as it really is once in a blue moon that he is there at the weekend and it has given Top Ender, Baby Boy and I some extra time together to play and create and generally have fun! Baby Boy fell asleep early and so Top Ender and I have been cuddled together on the sofa watching a film and reading to each other. Top Ender is in the bath at the moment and as soon as she is done we are going to read her bedtime story and then tuck her into bed.

It's the best way to end the night.
Top Ender in Bed
This was the only photo of Top Ender in bed I could find. It was taken The Night before Christmas,  hence the bedding!
I received an email during the week that had some research that TalkTalk had done and it found that 48% of UK parents don’t read bedtime stories to their kids and 57% of parents think that this practice is in danger of dying out. I was shocked. Admittedly I don't read to Top Ender and Baby Boy every night, but I felt really bad thinking that in future generations the bedtime story might just be something read about in stories.

They also found that the people that they surveyed had the following ten as their favourite bed time stories.

1. Famous Five, Enid Blyton
2. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
3. Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, H.C. Andersen
4. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne (We have been to Pooh's House!)
5. Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves
6. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
7. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
8. The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter
9. The Cat in the Hat, Dr Suess (Did you see our Cat in the Hat Hat's?)
10. The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling

I have read all of those and feel quite proud that Top Ender has read 3/4 of them too!

TalkTalk have also launched a competition called TalkTalkTales, backed by Bernard Cribbins, to find the nation's best amateur narrator... I think that maybe Daddy should enter, as I love listening to him read. If you want to hear him too, this video is of him reading The Story of Us.