Skip to main content

Reading Rainbow

This is the scene beside my bed. The mess is a little embarrassing, but the point is that I always have lots of books sitting in that spot because I love to read, especially before falling asleep. I've read at least part of each one pictured this week, plus others that are sitting other places (neatly stacked of course).

Today was the first of our weekly summer treks to the local library. One thing I can say for myself is that I have passed down a genetic love of books and reading to my children, an obsession that I received from my own dad. Since my kids were crawling, I've been taking them to the library, and they would beg to visit Barnes & Noble long before they ever knew that Toys R Us existed. Luckily we have a very family friendly library in town with its own kids room separated off from the adult area, stocked with toys for the babies, coloring supplies for the toddlers, besides the regular library goods.

Brainy Boy and I have always been habitual readers, taking 20-30 minutes each night before falling alseep to read something. If we don't have a good book at hand, we've been known to resort to a magazine or newspaper flier. I've been worried about Little Chic, though, as she loves being read to, but she doesn't appear to be a recreational reader on her own. She reads well and does what she needs for school, but she isn't one to curl up with a book--it's just not active enough for her.

This trip was exciting, though. I generally have to put a limit on Brainy Boy's books (like "only 10 for this week") and have to require a number from Little Chic (like "at least five"). This time, rather than ferreting out all the picture books of kitties, Little Chic went to the librarian on her own, asked for a mystery, a book on cats and a few other topics, and came home with five chapter books of her own choosing. By the time we'd left the library and gotten home, she was on chapter two of the first book she opened and she was reading sections aloud to me.

I also grabbed a couple for me to read aloud to her, one being the next requirement for our Mother/Daughter book club. Although Little Chic doesn't do a lot of reading, it had the word 'club' in it so she didn't have to think twice about joining. We'll be reading The Horse and His Boy for the book club, and then I chose Stories About Cats by James Herriot since Little Chic aspires to be a vet and she is obsessed with cats at this stage in her life.

We generally set aside Tuesday evenings for library day, as it's open until 9pm and Tuesdays are Hero Guy's Fire Department Training night. We'll probably stop for ice cream on the way home too, since we did it tonight and habits like that aren't easily broken at our house. Oh, yeah - if you bump into us at the grocery store on the way home, you'll need to watch out for us. We'll all have our heads buried in one of the new books we've checked out and we won't be watching where we're going. It's really not all that hard to steer a shopping cart while your nose is in the page. We tried it tonight and it worked just fine. We only ran up on a couple of Achille's tendons.

Comments

Unknown said…
Ouch to the last comment but oh so funny! I remember those library visits but those visits were so, so many years ago. I'm almost embarrassed to admit. I've read The Birth Order book thanks to you Jennifer and am still reading The Purpose Driven Live, thanks to you too! Those two books are excellent!
Rochelle said…
The scene beside my bed is very similar Jen! AND I still go to the library occasionally and if it has been too long between visits, I moan wistfully as I drive by. I LOVE libraries! (I'm a weirdo too!)
Anonymous said…
aren't books wonderful? we too are obsessed with reading at our house. i just ordered KID CEO from e-bay for $1. have you read it yet? wondering what your thoughts were on that one...
donna
tim said…
can a guy comment here? I feel like I'm the lone man in a beauty salon. ( that's a weird feeling).

don't worry about Little Chic, she'll get into the book thing. our oldest is like your Brainy Boy, lives with a book. The no-book-at-the-table rule is her biggest obstacle in life. Laura is just starting to get into books at 10 years. Before she was climbing trees, playing with whatever, and falling asleep by 9. now unless she's really wore out she's up reading till we demand that the lights go out.

all of us here use the read-to-go-to-sleep program. who needs Ambien when you've got a good book. right now I'm finishing up The Last of the Bush Pilots, a great book about Alaska and flying. Pam is into 5 Sisters by James Fox, Lizzie; The Luckiest Girl,by Bev Cleary, Laura is reading Little House on the Prairie.

we enjoy your thinks

tim and family
Anonymous said…
Glad to see Dave in your reading list. :) ~ Jennifer
Anonymous said…
My boys LOVE to still be read to! We read something everyday. Damon is a great reader and started the Magic Treehouse series, reading to me mostly but sometimes by himself.
Camron is the non-fiction guy and ALWAYS has a Ripley's, World Records book, any animal encyclopedia or an Eye Witness book in his hand, so that is something. I wish he would read chapter books, but even Mrs. Elmore couldn't do it!!! And when she tried it was more the Goosebump books and I personally find them creepy. He has read all the Captain Undepants books, I guess that is okay???? LOL~
~Sue

Popular posts from this blog

Stickin' It Out

I got married today. Well, not exactly today. It was Friday, June 2. But the year was 1989 - 17 years ago. "Amazing", people say. "Good for you", they comment. "You must have picked the right one", the add. Amazing? Yes. Good for me? I'll admit it. But it has nothing to do with picking the right one, really. It's not because I found the perfect boy, and it's certainly not because he found the perfect girl. It might sound a little unromantic, but there never really is a 'right one' floating around out there waiting in the cosmos for the other 'right one' to crash and connect. There may be 'better ones'; there may be 'more easily compatible' or something or other. But the real story is you start becoming the right one the moment you vow that "you do". When I married, I had been 20 for a whole 33 days, we had just completed a 2-year long-distance realtionship and HE was five years older tha

Too Close For Comfort

Depressing: Def., "Realizing that you and your Dearly Beloved are entirely to close to wearing the same pant size. Case in point - Hero Guy came ' har har-ing' out of the bedroom relating that he had accidentally been wearing a pair of my jeans for the last 15 minutes. He wondered why they felt so weird (translated - TIGHT) until he took them off and inspected the tag. He gloated that at least he knows he can fit into a Ladies Size ___ (you really think I'm going to tell you the number?!). My Observations: 1) He had a MONSTER wedgie, so the jeans were entirely too small for him. 2) They are my "fat" jeans, a size bigger than what I actually wear, but I just like the broken-in feeling of them. Or the roominess or something. 3) They were the stretchy kind of jeans, so an elephant could have painted itself into them. 4) What's he bragging about having a girlish figure for anyway? Not very macho if you ask me. Hmph.

Mixed Feelings

It's been a long time in coming, but as of this morning, I'm no longer a medical transcriptionist. I'm not sure how I feel about that...a little bit relieved, a little bit sad, a lot bit uncertain about whether I'll regret this decision. For the last year or so, I've found that the transcription work isn't fulfilling the need I once had to stay at home with my babies and have an income. I've increasingly felt that I need more interaction and less monotony. I've also felt the pressure of work that constantly needs to be done, with no sense of ever being really "finished." No matter how much work you've done for the day, there's always another note waiting to be transcribed. That goes for sick days, holidays, vacations days or any kind of days. This year, I've dabbled in substituting as a school monitor and office staff, and kind of found my niche in the last few weeks. I'll be working a couple of hours a day in one of the