Amiri's bedtime filibusters

Amiri's bedtime routine is to brush teeth, hug and kiss Daddy, get into bed, Mama tells Amiri a story, Amiri tells Mama a story, hug and kiss Mama, lights out.

These days, Amiri likes to hear stories about little animals, especially helpful animals who make their parents proud.  Amiri likes to tell me stories that are a melange of fairy tales, phonics lessons, and highlights from the story I just told.

"And thennnnn, the big brother monkey found the ice cream.  I, I, I, ice cream starts with the letter I.  And he gave the ice cream tooooo... Sleeping Beauty!  Mama, you like Sleeping Beauty?  Mama, you like ice cream?"

We are both aware of the flaw in the schedule.  I have to wait for Amiri to finish his story before I can leave (well, OK, I can leave any time I want but that would be rude).  So he draws it out, adding surprise twists and turns.  Sub-plots.  Lots of, "Oh!  You know what happened then??"-s to keep me engaged.  He'd work in a cast of thousands if he could count that high.

So I have learned to keep him on-target these days and to encourage him to work his way expeditiously toward that big 'The End'.  Once he sorts out the timing of his anecdotes, then we'll start working on his exposition and the subtleties of denouement.