Lauren Palma

Whatcha Gonna Dream About? Lauren Palma

THE BOOK. THE GAME. Bedtime is the worst. At least it is at my house. I found that getting my children excited about bedtime was the only way to get their "buy-in" to the idea. I tried lots of different techniques, but none worked as well as the new ritual that my daughter Lauren and I created, where we thought up crazy things we intended to dream about that night, told each other and then wrote them down. We ended up calling it "Whatcha Gonna Dream About?" We liked the idea that this game was something we came up with on our own. I'm not sure either of us remembers how it originally started, but it ended up being successful, and a lot of fun. It was useful not only to get my daughter to look forward to going to bed, but it also became a way to stimulate the imagination while having the added benefit of pulling her away from iPads, iPhones, and television. I started to look forward to that time, too. It became a really special part of the day because it was such high quality one-on-one time. It was a game but also a conversation, and as much I wanted to encourage her thoughts, I also enjoyed that we both could play. We have played this game for years and have written down hundreds of crazy, funny, off-the-wall dream ideas. We saved them all, and this book represents what I believe to be the most memorable. I shared these with every child I could find between the ages of three and eight, and I couldn't find a single kid who didn't laugh uncontrollably like they knew something that I didn't.