I had one of those wondrous parenting moments last week.

Do you know the ones?

When you are in the moment with your child and it is wonderful and everything you imagined parenting to be about before actually had kids and suddenly realize THIS is one of those THINGS you should REMEMBER.

And OMG! Blog about it! Preserve this fleeting moment!

It happened last week while reading in bed with my youngest who is now two.

With my eldest I was Determined Reading Parent.

As a former literacy tutor, I was determined to imbue a love of reading from early on and followed every tip out there to try to encourage reading and love of books from six months on.

Given my eldest still enjoys story-time and reading with me I’m fairly certain I managed to not completely ruin the experience.

That said, at five, although she can imaginary play and spin stories with a creativity I admit I envy (at some stage I will free write one of the stories she tells me) she still doesn’t have all her letters straight and I don’t need another parent-teacher meeting to know her literacy and writing skills lag behind her peers.

I also know she’s only five and there are huge developmental margins and personality issues that play into learning.

But I’d be lieing if I said it didn’t contribute to my much more laissez-faire approach with reading with my youngest.

I worried I might be short-changing her.

But we’ve recently settled into a lovely groove for bedtime reading.

She’s chosen a few favourites which stay on her now big girl bed, bed-side table.

Here they are:

She will choose one as we settle in.

We each have our own pillow in her bed.

Really. I have a “guest” pillow. It’s Strawberry Shortcake. We pull the blankets up and get comfy.

As we read, she gleefully cries out words she knows; repeat ones she doesn’t; points at pictures, and exclaims at various key “plot” points.

When the Boynton hippos go berserk, she grabs the book and wiggles it back and forth exclaiming BEH-SEK! BEH-SEK!

It’s all sorts of awesome.

And a completely different experience than I had with my eldest at the same stage, who instead quietly listened and, I suspect, still took much of it in.

But getting back to my youngest, when we get to the end of the first book, she’ll throw the covers off, scurry across the bed, get the next book from the table, come back and get back under the covers and wait for us to resume with book two.

Then book three.

Then book four.

Until we complete her current favourites.

Every now and then we hit the library and find new books to read.

Given her interest in ABC and vocab books presently, when we ended up at dance class early this weekend due to being out and about, we swung by the library in the same complex (I heart the St. Laurent Complex), and picked up these two beautiful board books:

Result? Sure, we can read those mom.

But then my other four!

They’re short, so I’m good with that.

And I also know the experience is as much about learning as it is about spending one on one time together.

In that vein – and because I still have some say over what she’ll consider reading at this stage – I had a bit of an impulse buying spree at Chapters recently and got three new board books for her for Christmas.

Here’s what Santa’s bringing:

About Austen? Yeah, that’s all about me thinking that was brilliant.

I suspect both girls will like the Superhero one, given they both dressed as superheroes for Halloween and both are currently sporadically still wearing their costumes to bed. I also like the message there.

I’m curious if the bunny book will be a hit given both girls have bunnies and they are a bit of an obsession over here.

Do check out our bunny board:

Also, I have to say, Googling “Bunny Rabbit Show” is fun if you are a bunny fan.

As an example?

Check out this video:

Who knew competitive bunny jumping was a thing?

But I should wind this up.

What books do you read with your preschoolers? I’d love to hear about them! I’m keeping a board with our favourites here:

I’m linking this post up with Meredith’s Manic Monday’s Blog Hop. Do click her nifty button there and check out other parenting posts who have also linked up.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Monday parenting post. I’m happy to know there’s a group out there to welcome them!

The lovely wonders of blogland!