Welcome to the New Home of Feed Me Books Friday!

Feed Me Books Friday was one of the inspirations for my start as a blogger and for Little Sprout Books, so I am honored and grateful to give it a new and loving home. Originally the brainchild of Janna at The Adventure of Motherhood, Feed Me Books Friday has become a beloved and informative weekly meme. Though it will always be Janna’s baby, it has grown up and left the nest. She will nurture new and valuable projects over at Mommy’s Piggy Tales. I hope you’ll continue to make Feed Me Books Friday an event that inspires and evokes a love of reading and brings book-loving bloggers together!

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If you have Janna’s button on your blog, (or even if you don’t) I hope you’ll grab the new one from my site that will bring others here to share their books and get great recommendations.


Comfort for Big Changes

B with Care Bear in the airport.

Making changes for Feed Me Books Friday and trying to make long-time contributors feel welcome reminded me of the anxious feelings that arise during any transition. Many children have a lovey, a comfort object, a blankie, or a baby that brings them comfort in times of anxiety or change. My blankie from childhood is up in my attic, and it still imbues a sense of calm when I come across it. B has been attached to both a care bear and a baby, and had a brief affair with Mickey Mouse and Cat in the Hat. The comfort that a lovey provides is inexplicable to anyone else. A grubby toy or tattered blanket is priceless to its owner while seemingly undesirable to others. A lovey is a healthy tool as children mature in their social-emotional development, and many adults continue to find comfort in a special object, be it a favorite chair, a worn in t-shirt, or a treasured book.

B's baby even makes it into photo-ops!

 

To Each His Own

Both the value and individual importance of a lovey are conveyed by Where’s My Teddy by Jez Alborough. In this bouncy rhyming tale, Eddie has lost his teddy in the woods. He finds it a little creepy and is anxious to find his beloved Freddie and get home. He finds a teddy that resembles Freddie in every respect escept that he is enormous! As Eddie is trying to figure out what happened to Freddie and how he’ll get him home, a real (very large) bear approaches, clutching a tiny teddy (the real Freddie). Eddie and the bear are equally startled by one another and equally overjoyed to find their own teddies. They retrieve their beloved teddies and retreat to their beds, safe and comfortable at last. The rhymes and anticipation of the story will make this book a page-turner, but go back and spend some time studying the illustrations – there are many details to be discovered in the forest scenes.

Appropriate for: toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades

I hope you’ll link up with a recommended book post this week, or leave me a comment to tell me about a book you love, or maybe share your own lovey story.

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Sleep Stories

There Were Four in the Bed…
At the risk of being controversial, I am going to admit: I’m a co-sleeping mom. Neither of my boys were the kind of infants that you just swaddle up and lay in the bassinet to drift off to sleep. In fact, I would be inclined to consider that type of baby a complete myth if my mom didn’t tell me my brother was that way. I tried to climb out of bed for each feeding, but found myself asleep in the rocking chair. Daddy tried rocking, walking, and soothing so maybe they’d learn to fall asleep without me, but mostly they screamed. I tried lovies, music, fans, and routines. Then I gave in and did what felt right in the first place, I tossed the blankets and pillows, snuggled my baby up to my breast, and slept. There was a time when I wondered if B would ever sleep on his own, but at just over a year, he transitioned with minimal effort. That fact convinced me that I wasn’t making an enormous mistake by allowing T (and myself) the same comfortable sleep scenario. We aren’t a co-sleeping family, at least not regularly. We’ve made exceptions for vacations and the occasional bad dream, but B normally sleeps best in his own room. Sometimes Daddy nods off when he’s putting B to bed, and spends an hour or so there. Sometimes he’s with me and T. Sometimes he’s in the extra bed on his own. It works for us. I’ve expressed concern that my husband might feel “kicked-out” of our bed, but he assures me that he’s happy seeing the boys sleep comfortably and admits he’d be enjoying the same arrangement if the roles were reversed.

Daddy, T, and B getting ready for bedtime stories in B's room.

B tries out T's crib (not to sleep though).

Comfortable is a State of Mind
When we came across The Biggest Bed in the World at our library, I had to bring it home for a bedtime story. In it, Lindsay Camp tells the story of a Mommy and Daddy whose bed just keeps getting fuller and fuller as their family grows! At first, Dad feels cozy with his family cuddled together in bed, but as more and more children come along (7 altogether) it gets too crowded. Dad tries several humorous solutions before building the biggest bed in the world. In it, they can all tuck in comfortably; but unfortunately the biggest bed in the world is too big for their house. With the whole family inside, it falls through the floor, slides down a hill and floats them out to sea! When they return home, they go back to a regular size bed and Dad insists that all children sleep in their own beds. But once he is on his own, Dad finds he can’t get comfortable enough to sleep, and realizes that sacrificing a little space is worth the comfort of sharing a cozy sleep with his family.

If you’re trying desperately to convince your little one that their bedroom is the best place to sleep, you might want to hold off reading this book until you’ve finished that battle. However, when we read it with B, we talked about sleeping where you are comfortable, and that worked for him. He’s comfortable where he can stretch out in his bed, and where he has his nightlight and his fish tank to watch. Right now, T is comfortable sleeping with Mommy because he still wakes up to eat at night. B knows that he can come to our bed if he is sick or scared, and we will help make him comfortable; and he loves to come cuddle there in the mornings! I’m going to risk controversy again when I say I think it was a positive emotional experience for B to share our bed until he was ready to sleep on his own. I’d recommend The Biggest Bed in the world to parents who co-sleep with one child, to those who want to explain why the baby is co-sleeping but an older child isn’t, or to those who just want to enjoy the humor, exaggeration, and fun illustrations.


Appropriate for: toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades.


Linking up with:

Feed Me Books Friday (at Aspiring Mom2three this week)

Meme’s the Word (on Saturday)

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No Replacements Here: Mother, Mother, I Want Another

A Misleading Title:

The title of Mother, Mother I Want Another by Maria Polushkin Robbins made me think of some of my more exasperated moments with B: when he wants another drink of water before bed, or another cookie after the first four, or another game of hide and seek when I’ve found him behind the armchair five times already. I could not have been more wrong. This book gets its humor from an exasperated Mother Mouse who misunderstands her baby’s request.

A Mislead Mouse:

Mother Mouse tucks baby mouse into bed with his goodnight kiss, and he says, “Mother, Mother I want another!” Poor Mother Mouse thinks he has requested another mother instead of her, and goes about finding other animal mothers who come to her aid with an amusing assortment of lullabies. I made up a little tune to sing the lullabies to, but was even more tickled when B asked Grandma to read it one day, and she not only had a tune, but animal voices to go with it!

Mystery Solved:

After a parade of mothers, a tired baby mouse gets fed up and explains that what he wants is another KISS! Ah, poor Mother Mouse went to all that trouble… but who can deny their baby another kiss? So he gets kisses from Mother Mouse and all the other animal mothers too. Such a feel-good ending to the story – and I can’t help but pile the kisses on in the style of each of the mothers! This photo is me stealing some kisses from T.

Your Social Sprout:

Besides being a heart-warmer, Mother, Mother I Want Another may help support your child’s social-emotional development as you discuss whether each of the animal mothers could really be baby mouse’s mother, or whether he would even really want another mother. While the youngest infants recognize their mother’s scent, it is between 6 and 12 months that babies develop that social-emotional attachment to mom that makes it hard for us to even leave the room. I love the warm and humorous way this book shows how all of the animal mothers help care for the baby.

For a similar whose-is-whose discussion, I also love Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino. More animal mamas populate this humor-filled rhyming book.

Appropriate for toddlers-primary grades.

Happy Mother’s Day to any of my mom readers! I'm linking up with Feed Me Books Friday at the Adventure of Motherhood. I try to celebrate each Mother’s Day with a new book about moms, mothers, mamas, or mommies to share with my boys. Any suggestions?

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