Nightmare Stories

Bedtime at our house is a process.  It takes far too long to get the last light out.

Our problem is my kids LOVE to read.  I turn out the light and before long they flip it on and retrieve a book behind the closed door.

My youngest, Abi, won't allow a single bedtime routine left undone.  Sometimes I try to skip the bathroom process (because it takes FOREVER).  It's only sucessful till I get out the door.  She riealzes it was skipped and calls out 

"Mom!  We forgot to potty!" 

The best part of the routine for her (and me) is the bedtime story.  I read one and ONLY one story.

Usually she loves a story so much she asks me to read it again the next night.  This is the case with our current book.

"Those stories are messed up!" Jace commented as I read them out loud.

I was thinking the same thing.

I have a problem with a lot of rhymes.

Old Mother Hubbard- tells of a starving dog.

Humpty Dumpty- death off a wall :0

Ladybug Ladybug:

A house fire and only one child surviving. 

The worst of them all are...

Why do we sing this to our babies?

We're singing about a baby falling out of a tree!

I looked into the origin of this lullaby and learned it had to do with Native Indian mothers hanging their babies in a birch bark cradle from trees to have the wind rock them to sleep.  That sounds a lot more comforting, right?

Did you know these lyrics refer to death?

The first outbreak of the Plague hit England in the 1300's. The symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy). Pockets and pouches were filled with sweet smelling herbs ( or posies) which were carried due to the belief that the disease was transmitted by bad smells. The term "Ashes Ashes" refers to the cremation of the dead bodies! The death rate was over 60% and the plague was only halted by the Great Fire ofLondon in 1666 which killed the rats which carried the disease which was transmitting via water sources.

This is how we view it:

this is how it began:

Hey kids, lets walk into a random house and help ourselves to their loot! ???What??

(kids should be alone in the forest anyway. haha)

This story is REALLY messed up.  It gave me the creeps as I read it a few days ago.  I should have stopped reading when they were lost in the forest and had eaten all the berries.  My 3 year old didn't seem to grasp the idea that a wicked witch kidnaps them, turns them into slaves and locks them up with the plan to cook them!  Horror story!!

Thankfully Gretel tricks the witch and tosses her into the fire first!  What???

I think I will stick to these favorites for bedtime 

**I think I may have written about this before but when I searched for it I didn't find it.