Bedtime stories

So for reference, I am a father of 2 toddlers, a 4 year old boy and a soon to be 3 year old girl. Married to their beautifully amazing mother. Our routine at night is, I do bedtime since mommy is stay at home and she does mornings. Most nights is cleanup (bath/shower/wipe downs, whatever the day requires), diaper change for the 2 year old, PJs, brush teeth, climb into my son’s full-size bed (he outgrew his toddler bed and instead of buying a twin size bed we just gave him the spare bed that wasn’t being used and just have the box spring/mattress on the floor) and I will read a few books, say our prayers and hugs/kisses and away we go.Most nights routine look like that. On the later nights I will skip reading books because as many of you may already know, toddlers and reading a book or two can turn into a 45 minute ordeal if we don’t keep them on task, but instead of just skipping a book, I will tell them a bedtime story. We just say, “no books tonight, only a story” and both kids understand. I’ve gotten to the point that saying the same 3 stories gets old, fast, and I’ll start saying them half-assed. Cheating the kids out of the usually entertaining stories that I tell (I add my own flair to each of the characters).So one night a few months ago we were debating on what story I should tell them. They didn’t want 3 Little Pigs or Goldilocks. I didn’t want to do Hansel and Gretel. So jokingly I asked, “Hey, do you kids want to know how I became the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?” Mom, who was around the corner laughed, the kids were confused, but excited about this prospective new story, completely buying how serious I was about being a Prince of Bel Air. So, I read off the lyrics to the song in story form, and the kids love it.So much, in fact, they’ll ask me weekly to tell them the story about how dad became the Prince of Bel Air.If I knew the cult-following that story would have with my kids, I probably wouldn’t have offered that story up. But I guess that’s what I get for trying to be funny. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2TrEZiG