Bedtime routine

I was going to post some photos from last weekend today, but then I got this photo last night. This is what our new bedtime routine looks like. The kids always used to go to bed at the same time, but Liam started complaining that he was lying awake. And the thing about Liam and sleep is, you know he's being honest. He's not just yanking our chains to try to stay up too late, because he values his sleep too much. He is really good at going to bed early when he's tired and staying up when he's not. I could take a lesson from him. Anyway, Mallory now goes to bed at her original time, and Liam gets to stay up a half hour later. We spend this time reading, which is Liam's new passion. He is getting great pleasure out of picking up long chapter books at school, 50-60 pages each, and polishing them off in a night or two. He picks books that belong to a series, like Cam Jansen or Magic School Bus, and then follows the characters through multiple stories. He used to read out loud to me, but there wasn't a whole lot of point, because he knows all the words. So we read separately but together now, and occasionally he'll interrupt me to confirm that this word means what he thinks it does. I get a big kick out of seeing him starting to devour books because I was like that as a kid, too. I love the fact that this is time that we get to spend together, but we also both get to enjoy an activity that we like. I have not had much time for reading lately, but this might be the ticket to getting my foot back in the door.