Kat and I have a new bedtime routine, but before I explain, here’s a bit of background.

As new parents, the time between when the little one goes to bed, and we go to bed, is very special. It’s quiet. We don’t have to be keeping track of where he is, what he’s doing, and what he shouldn’t be doing. It’s our time to do whatever we want, and we love it. we used to climb into bed around 10:30, Kat on her iPhone, and me on my iPad. The lights would go off, our gadgets illuminating the room until we were finished whatever we were doing (Kat, playing a game, and me spending time on Twitter, or playing a game). Though we were laying beside each other, we weren’t really spending time together, which is important when you’ve had to share the entire day with a cute baby.

A few weeks ago that routine changed. Now, we climb into bed, Kat gets cosy, and I open a book and start reading to her. It’s fun, and we’re spending time together instead of each staring at our iDevices. The stories I’m reading are all short ones, and I’m changing them up all the time. The book we’ve spent the most time with is Smoke & Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. I’ve always wanted to read something he’s written (I even own American Gods), I’ve just never gotten around to it. Thankfully he’s written a number of short stories, and we’ve enjoyed most of the ones we’ve read. I have other stories I’ve downloaded onto my Sony Reader (which is awesome – I absolutely love it) from Project Gutenberg. All their books are in the public domain, and you can find tons of fairy tales, and short stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, H.G Wells, and many others. I’m looking forward to reading the Andrew Lang “Colored Fairy Books.” There are 12 of them in all, totalling 418 fairy tales. I’m really looking forward to reading them to Brody when he gets older.

Now I look forward to “Story Time” before bed, instead of playing on my iPad while Kat is on her iPhone. It’s a fun thing to do as a couple before bed; I’d recommend others try it out as well. Hopefully I’ll get some gift certificates from Amazon.com for Christmas so I can order books from Kindle.com and convert them to run on  my Sony Reader.

What will we read tonight? I’m not sure, but I’m looking forward to it!