Last weekend I took the girls to the Southwest Florida Reading Festival. We went last year and had so much fun so when I realized it was taking place again, I made sure we didn’t miss it.

The reading festival couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s a reminder to me, as a parent, to encourage daily reading with the girls. Olivia’s school (thankfully) is a no homework school (again, so THANKFUL), but she is required to read for a minimum of 20 minutes each day. Sadly, the past few weeks, I admit, I have slacked off a little bit; whenever she whines that she doesn’t want to read, I give in to screen-time (because I get a few moments of no-whining from all three girls when they’re on screen time. I know, sad but true). After last week’s Momo scare, I’m glad to be reminded that I need to get back on track and offline as much as possible.

So, I’m back to checking out all the Pinterest boards I made with children’s books I wanted to read and trying to find my motivation to continue to raise little readers. I never thought this would be a problem since, naturally, I love to read, but life has a sneaky way of getting in the way and I, like many other people, have the tendency of overthinking things. Could it be just as simple as sticking a book in their hands- as much as possible, to foster their natural love for books? Yes, I think so.

I was looking forward to spending the day among books, the sun and my girls. I’m re-committing myself to practicing daily reading with all three of them and I want to encourage Olivia to use that pretty journal that she got for Christmas. Maybe in encouraging her writing I can get back into my own daily writing habit…

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