Bedtime

We went through a fairly long period of time where Amanda had a hard time falling asleep at night. She simply would not relax and lay down. So finally we tried an old remedy that I had forgotten worked as well as it did. I started reading her bedtime stories.

When she was younger we read Dr Suess and other funny stories. She loved when Tina would read ARE YOU MY MOTHER?

But with the modern age, we got away from that. She would watch movies on her TV or iPad. Night after night taking longer to fall asleep. Needless to say, it got to be a dreadful time.

But about two months ago I grabbed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone off the shelf. It took two months but we finished last week. Some nights I would read ten pages while other nights only a couple of paragraphs. She reaches over, closes the book and tells me to leave so she can sleep.

We started The Chamber of Secrets a few days ago and are still on chapter two. At the rate we're going I have bedtime figured out until she is about 30

The Latest

There isn't enough space on the Internet to detail all of the changes that have gone on with me and mine since the last post, so I'll explain the most significant accomplishments.

At Thanksgiving Amanda sat through her first movie in a theater. It was the new Muppet Movie. She LOVED it. We quickly downloaded a number of other Muppet movies to her iPad and she spent the next month in love with them.

Then Christmas rolled around and we went and saw The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. She feels about this movie and the two other Chipmunk movies like I feel about the Lord of the Rings trilogy. She even went back the next week to see it again with just Tina.

Then I made the mistake of downloading the soundtracks to the Chipmunk movies. Did you know, there ain't no party like a chipmunk party because a chipmunk party don't stop? Tina and I are very aware.

Tuesday we asked her to please turn it down, it was driving us crazy. Amanda's answer was. "Don't talk about my Chipmunks like that, you don't understand." Okay, she is a teenager.

We tried to throw her off a little by taking her to see A Joyful Noise. She liked it and has the soundtrack to it as well. She sings Man in the Mirror from it rather well. But my baby girl needs to dance, and that means CHIPMUNKS!!!

And just so you understand where all this music is coming from, Amanda has an iPhone 4 synced to a Jawbone Jambox. 85 decibels of ALVIN!!!

Speaking of her iPhone. I like to FaceTime call her from work after school. The problem with this is she is so near sighted that she holds the phone right up to her eye to see me. It's like I'm talking to Salron from Mordor.