This past Thanksgiving, we spent a few days with my brother and sister-in-law up in Rexburg, Idaho... and we were very impressed by their family bedtime routine. So, at the new year, we adopted a similar bedtime routine with Keyan. (Miraculous, I know. It only took us 2 1/2 years to set up a solid routine!!) There are more mundane things that we've built into the routine: tubby (bath) time, brushing teeth, etc. But the heart of our ritual has been:
Carpet Time. This is what we adopted from Ryan & Tina.
We lay down a blanket for Keyan to sit on, and we practice the
Primary scripture for the month. We didn't mean to have Keyan memorize them... but so far he has. January's theme was "I am a spirit child of Heavenly Father" and the scripture was Psalms 82:6 "All of you are children of the most High." February's theme is "I came to earth as part of a family" and the scripture is from the
Family Proclamation "The family is ordained of God." This month's has been a little harder for Keyan because of words like "proclamation" and "ordained" but still he loves reciting the words to us. And it's been so great, because now when we have
family night, we can incorporate these scriptures into the lesson to help enlarge Keyan's understanding.
It just amazes me what prodigious sponges kids are. It reminds me of when President
Thomas S. Monson quoted the scholar Dr. Glenn Doman in an
address this past January, saying that the most receptive age in human life is that of two or three years old. It's too true!
Anyway, after practicing our scriptures, we take turns picking a song to sing as a family. Then we say a family prayer and take Keyan to bed. It's been a wonderful ritual. So wonderful, I tried to capture it on video last night.... but darn it.... why do kids get so silly when you turn a camera on?? :) Oh well, you get the idea :)
