Elmo Visit's Story Time for a Cause

Last week we had a special Story Time Celebration.

It was the annual Miss Mary Birthday Celebration.

Every year on her birthday, she has a huge party with cake and gifts for the kids.

It's always a huge celebration, but this year's celebration was fantastic!

For the first time ever, she shared her birthday celebration. And she shared it with a wonderful little girl and for a great cause.

Meet Faith.

Faith and her family live in our neighborhood. She is an absolutely adorable girl and she has Cystic Fibrosis. Faith and her family were raising money for the Atlanta Area Great Strides Walk-a-thon that took place this weekend.

As part of the birthday celebration, and to help raise money for "Team Faith." there was a very special visitor. Elmo was there!

The Story Time event was a huge success, there were over 300 moms, dads and kids there and Team Faith raised over $400 from this event alone and $7500 total.

Sam was very excited all day about seeing Elmo. Every where we went that morning, he told people about seeing Elmo. We even got Miss Mary an Elmo birthday balloon. And when the time came for his picture, he was beside himself with excitement....

For more information on Cystic Fibrosis or to make a donation, please click here.

Getting the Sillies Out

Day two of "Week of the Young Child": Story Time

The local Parks and Recreation department in my town has free story times for toddler to preschool aged children twice a week at the community center.

Calling it "Story Time" is really a misnomer. Our story teller, Miss Mary, usually reads one or two books and then gets the kids get the sillies out through music and dancing.

She doesn't play the "usual" kids music but has fun, upbeat, music from artists like Laurie Berkner, Jim Gill, Ralph Covert and various other musicians. The music gives the kids a chance to run around -- they are toddler to preschool age after all -- sitting still is just not on the agenda!

There is usually a "theme" for each week and occasionally she has something special planned. For example, when she does the "Teddy Bear Picnic" theme all the kids bring their teddy bears and we have a Teddy Bear Parade. Sometimes she has children's authors come and read their books to the kids. On Halloween the kids come in costume and parade around the community center. Occasionally there is a craft of some type.

I know I'm very lucky to live in an area with a fantastic Parks and Recreation department and that they are able to provide free story times is wonderful!

However, if you don't have something like this offered in your area, you can find free story times through your local library and most of the major book store chains have them as well (that's how our story teller got her start). Some coffee shops have story times as well. Sometimes you can find story times advertised in local papers or community publications.

And Story Time is an activity that can span age groups as well. I started bringing Josh to Story Time when he was 2. Sam has been going his whole life. This was a great activity for the both kids to enjoy when Sam was a baby and Josh was not in school full time.

And story time isn't just for the kids. I've met most of my friends here through story time or they can be connected to story time some how. It's a great (free) social activity for parents and children alike.

Story Time Today

I bring Sam to Story Time every Tuesday at the local community center.


It's fun. He is normally quite subdued and sits and listens to the story and then he insists that Ms. Mary play Winnie the Pooh/The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers by Ralph Covert over and over and over again (she will indulge him and play it ONCE!). And then he goes up and helps her sing it. He stands by her, looks at the floor and sings it as quietly as he can -- and when it gets to the Tiggers Bouncing part, he jumps and smiles and then stops and looks down again. It's quite funny actually!


Today's Story Time was a bit unusual... Mary brought her youngest (no school) and Sam and Jack love to chase each other. They were in rare form.


I'm afraid "The Real Sam" came out today!