You'd never believe they ran me ragged...

Or that this is at almost 10:30 at night AND I only managed to bathe one of them tonight. But we did make it to the library for some new books.

They are both looking at Stella books, by Marie-Louise Gay. The illustrations are gorgeous and perfect for jump-starting the imagination into sweet dreams. These books let the illustrations do most of the talking, while the written part details the conversations that Stella and her little brother, Sam, have during their outings. I LOVE how all of the books are set outdoors. Here is how Stella, Princess of the Sky starts:

"Stella!" cried Sam. "Stella! Look! The sky is on fire!"

No, it isn't, Sam," said Stella. "The sun is just going to sleep."

"Why is it so red?" asked Sam

"Can't you see? It's wearing red pyjamas."
"Pyjamas?" said Sam. "Like mine?"

"Of course," said Stella, "and when the moon rises, it wraps the sun up in a big starry blanket."

* * *

Sweet dreams!

I would call this a bedtime story FAIL

I picked up The Frog Prince from the library to read to the kids and tonight I read it to them at bedtime. I picked up one that was a retelling (simplification) of the Brothers Grimm version, which is the original.

Usually I flip through books to make sure there isn't anything that I wouldn't want to read to my kids in it. Sometimes kids story books can take some weird turns. Such was the case tonight.

From my recollection, The Frog Prince was a story about a princess who ends up kissing a frog that lives in a nearby pond and it turns into a prince. I didn't remember the circumstances leading up to the kiss, but I thought it had something to do with her helping him.

Wrong-o!

In this story, the frog helps the princess then the princess refuses to keep her part of the deal. Her father tells her she must keep her promises so she begrudgingly does even though she thinks the frog is totally icky. When the frog helped the princess, she agreed to let him eat her food and sleep in her nice warm bed. Well, her father had to order her to let the frog eat with her, and when bedtime came around she tried to get away with not having the frog sleep in her bed. The frog threatened to tell her father on her, and then I turned the page to this:

AWFUL. I couldn't exactly improvise on a picture like that!*

Then, of course, the frog turns back into a prince (the hit knocked the spell out of him?) and they live happily ever after.

The End.

*But I did say that I thought the princess was cruel and I did not like that story at all. Both true.

What if?

Today Lily asked me what would have happened if Gus and Jaq took the stepsister's beads and sash but DIDN'T use them to decorate Cinderella's dress. She picked up on a pretty pivotal moment in the story!

I think tomorrow I'll revisit this with her and we'll see what she says... maybe she'll come up with an alternate ending.

The princess and the snowmobile

Lily and I were playing "Sleeping Princess" this afternoon. I was the prince. We danced, she ran away and fell asleep and I had to wake her. Then she asked me who I was, said I was her prince, and she said "well then, we better get married." So we went off riding our horses to get married in the living room castle when suddenly Lukasz when whizzing by me making motor noises and proclaiming "I'm on my snowbeel!" (snowmobile)