Thank goodness for audiobooks, folks! My kids would love nothing more than for me to read to them from sun up until sun down. I will often sit and read a towering pile of books with them, and when I get up to do something else they complain that I did not read them enough books.
I love to read. I get it. I love that they love to read, believe me, but I cannot read aloud the entire day.
 Seuss reading Where the Wild Things Are. |
Seuss was a needy infant. He was an extremely happy baby so long as I was holding him. And he projectile vomited all day long, all over everything had reflux, and the reflux was worse if he was squished at all, which meant that when I sat on the couch to read a stack of books with Seuss on my lap and T and Leo leaning on us, trying to look at the illustrations… well, it didn’t always go well.
My solution? Audiobooks. Sure, I still read to my children but I was not able to read as much as they wanted me to read during those early months with new-to-the-world-Seuss.
But audiobooks can get expensive. And, as I’ve mentioned already, my kids are book-obsessed. So what did I do?
I made our own audiobooks. When Leo and T were napping (oh, that blessed nap overlap!), I would record myself reading some of our favorites aloud to Seuss while he snuggled in the k’tan, and then burn the recording onto a blank CD. It was easy to do and after several weeks we had quite the collection.
Sure, it took some getting used to on my part. Walking by your playroom and hearing your own voice coming out of the CD player is cringe-worthy, but my children *love* these audiobooks.
We have rediscovered some of these old audiobook favorites over the last two weeks, as my little poppies have been under the weather. It seems like I just made those CDs with Seuss snuggled against my chest, but my little Seuss is now three years old. Throughout the recordings, you can hear baby Seuss. “Mama?” T will ask, “is that Seuss making that sweet sound?” Yes, yes it is our little Seuss.
Those sweet Seuss sounds sure makes the CDs less cringe-worthy.
Love this A.A. Milne collection!
This collection is read by Dahl himself!
Great for travel- this is the complete, unabridged series on audio!
The best book, like the best speech, will do it all- make us laugh, think, cry, and cheer-
preferably in that order.
~Madeleine Albright
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Follow My Little Poppies’s board Family Book Club @ My Little Poppies on Pinterest.
Caitlin Fitzpatrick Curley
Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Raising Poppies, a community for parents of gifted and twice-exceptional children. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.
Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool and GeekMom. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, and Scary Mommy. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram
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What a great idea making your own audiobooks! Have your listened to The Tales from the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne? It is amazing, my husband and I also couldn’t stop listening to it. It is quite scary in some parts, but my DD6 who is also PG and easily frightened (doesn’t watch most disney movies) LOVED it. The reader, James Simmons is fantastic.
oops here is the link
http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Odyssey-Collection-Mary-Osborne/dp/0061254576/ref=tmm_abk_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1411704177
Thank you SO much for this recommendation! My little guy was OBSESSED with her MTH series so this will be absolutely perfect. Thanks for sharing!!
I LOVE this idea! When my husband and I got married my stepson was 6, and we were nervous about being away from him for 12 days for our honeymoon so we made videos of ourselves reading books to him, but that was almost 7 years ago now. I never thought to make my own audiobooks. I need to do that asap! As for the reflux, my oldest had that too. No fun! I spent everyday feeling like I’d just gotten off a water ride.
Hi Emily,
Great to see you on here- so glad we connected 🙂 I love that you made videos of books being read. That is the sweetest. I highly recommend the audiobooks. They have been a huge hit since the beginning. Plus, I get to hear baby Seuss noises in the background and that’s just the sweetest.
I’m actually thinking of making a CD for Leo with guided relaxation on it. He’s been a little nervous with all the work we have going on at our place and he’s waking up at night. We’ve been practicing mindfulness at night before bed but I think having an emergency CD to listen to with headphones might help. Oooh- I might have just thought of a post right now, while responding to you- thank you! 🙂
Do you have a post with details on how you created the audio cd? Thanks!
Hi, Marianne!
Do you know what? That was such a sleep-deprived phase of my life that I don’t remember exactly how I did it. I know I used my iPhone and the record app and then uploaded to our computer and burned onto a blank CD but I really should go back and try it again to see and then write a post. You are not the first person to ask! I promise to try this soon!