At the end of the day when we’re all tired & wearing pajama pants, the boy is fresh out of a shower & I’m fresh out of energy. Doug dries him off as I lay out pajamas & they usually don’t match but that’s okay. I sit “criss-cross applesauce” on the floor & Harrison picks out a few books. He sits in my lap & he fits perfectly right now, his legs draping over mine & the top of his head reaching my chin.
I close my eyes & press my face against the back of his & smell the baby shampoo that we still use because it’s just so yummy-smelling.
I read him two books, sometimes three, & then he asks to read to me. Doug lays on the floor in front of us & I lean back on my hands & Harry “reads” to us, getting the story right but adding on a few extras. He turns the book around at every page to show Doug the pictures.
It’s my favorite part of the day.
Last night he only wanted to read to us & I listened while looking over his bookshelves, crammed with words & pictures. I need to start stocking up on the good stuff, I tell myself. Where the Red Fern Grows & To Kill A Mockingbird & Tom Sawyer.
When I was a little girl, I kept a flashlight in my bedside table for when The Momma kissed me goodnight. I’d read under my covers about horses & babysitters clubs & a pair of twins in Sweet Valley.
I think Harry’s going to be the same.
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My oldest is that way with books. You can find her, when she’s gone missing and quiet in the house, curled into a corner with a book. I used to wonder how she read so fast, whether she was getting it all, comprehending. So, I started reading the same books and we’d discuss them later. At 12, she’s already beyond Judy Blume but reading those with her, knowing that they were my books, still have my name and ’78 written in them? It is an awful feeling to know you are passing on a love of books to your children.
If only I could get the boy to sit still long enough to give a damn.
Do they still do Battle of the Books in school? Check into that if she’s reading way above her level – it was the only way I was kept entertained in middle school!
Oh I love it when my 3 year old “reads” to me…it’s so calming to me for some reason. His cute little voice and little words just make me feel all warm and fuzzy!
It’s the voice that slays me, too.
I purchased the young children’s version of Peter Pan, Wizard of Oz and Anne of Green Gables. My daughter loves them and I hope it will encourage her to read the full version when she’s older. I was also huge into that club of babysitters and a certain set of twins from Sweet Valley…I would get caught reading under my desk at school!
I did, too! Thoroughbred books by Joanna Campbell were my weakness.
Oh, I do the same with my youngest! She’s the only one of the three that shows a love of reading already. I want to read all of the Little House on The Prairie books with her, Where the Red Fern Grows, Ramona Quimby…there are so many I can’t wait to share with her
Laura’s already staying up (way too) late, reading in bed by the light of her Christmas tree that’s still up. She reads pretty loudly, and we love hearing the stories she tells from the pictures in her books. Whenever we can’t find a favorite book to read together, I check her bed first!
Oh, how this makes my heart soar. You touched on one of my most favorite memories with each of our girls. I don’t remember a lot of their firsts without looking them up, but I remember each of their first books they “read” to us. My big girls (adults now) still have conversations between them about the books/characters/plots they loved. It is with great restraint that they don’t demand that our youngest *love* the same books they did when they were her age.
How lucky am I that their big sibling conflict is which book they love?! I am blessed with a family of book nerds. I wish the same for you!
Yay for mini book nerds! My Zach enjoys reading the most so far. Lucy’s too busy right now, but I really hope they both become readers. I was like you, reading by probably-not-so-secret flashlight growing up.
Oh how I love this. My girls love to read to me, each other, their dolls, etc etc etc. I just think that a child who has books can go anywhere. We don’t have a lot of extra money these days so our books create our trips. My 4yo tells people she goes to England b/c all her friends live there: Christopher Robin, Mary Poppins, and Peter Pan. I love it. I even started to sell kids books as a way to get more books in my house!! Thanks for sharing!!
I did the SAME thing when I was younger – I am SUCH a book nerd….and it’s looking like both of my boys are going to be the same way. We agree to read at least 2 books per night, but Wesley’s always wanting me to read just a few more…and my Liam will bring any book he can find up to me…even if I’m trying to cook dinner – so of course, I have to turn the burners down and take a minute to read about shapes, colors, and Edwin’s adventures trying to find dinner (Me Hungry, Wesley’s fave book right now).
My 3 year old also loves books, and I feel so lucky that he does. He happens to have a speech delay, but he does his best to “read” his favorite stories and make up ones of his own as he plays. As a book lover myself I know how many years of happiness books will bring him.
I’m raising a little book nerd too. I let him leave a stack of books by the bed and he already has a flashlight in his nightstand. When he can’t sleep or he isn’t wanting a nap – I turn him to books! I’ve got all of Narnia and Harry Potter ready to go when it’s time and I need to stock up on some other classics too!
Also a current hit – Nat Geo Jr. magazines – he gets so excited that something comes for him in the mail!
Have you started any chapter books with Harrison? We just started reading simple chapter books with D, and he really likes picking up where the story left off and continuing it over several nights. We just read the My Father’s Dragon series (an oldie, written in the 50s I think) about a boy and his dragon friend. D loved them!
My momma and I just had this conversation over the weekend. My little boy is just like me. He’s only 15 months old but his first choice of “toys” is always the books. When I take him in his room at night while I prepare us for the next day, he races right over to his bookshelf, sits down and starts taking the books off the shelf to “read.”
Just yesterday my mom said she laid him down for his nap and there was a book in the crib. She found him a little while later, sound asleep, sitting up, reading his book.
I’m so excited to be raising a bookworm!
Our Harry has also always been a book lover. Bedtime books is my favorite time of day. It’s just the best.
my 3 year old is such a book lover. she *must* take a few books to bed with her every night and she has 2 flashlights she takes. i hear her in there each night reading until she falls asleep. i love that she loves books. she has a busytown book that she calls “daddy’s favorite book” and she loves it the best. he reads her stories out of there and that’s what makes her the happiest. it’s pretty much the greatest thing. ever.
I don’t have kids, and therefore don’t have storytime at night (well, I did try reading parts of 50 Shades aloud to my husband last year and couldn’t get more than a couple of sentences in before giggling my head off), but SWEET VALLEY! I was just thinking about those books the other day. I read them all – the elementary ones, the middle school ones (remember when they all got to go to Hawaii??), the HS series as well as the college ones (which kind of….sucked).
I, too, made my eyesight worse than it would’ve been reading long after the lights went out – usually by the light of my closet.
Just had to share. PS – I love your blog!
I just finished reading our first chapter book to our five (OMG, seriously, FIVE? already?!) year old. Albeit, it was Ralph S. Mouse, it was so real. Like, ” we’re stopping at chapter 4 tonight buddy”
chapter 4, not ” you can spin the cars on go dog go once more before bed” but here’s our chapter, where’s my book mark
I have a big book nerd. Jonathon is 21. When he was little we always read at night. i know after he started middle school he would stay up at night and read. He bought the complete works of Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe in high school from a used book store. He LOVED the Sugar Creek Gang books when he was younger. So glad to hear there is a new generation of book nerds.
My husband cracked up the other day when we were running family errands and he came back to the car and I was in the front seat reading my book and our daughter was in her carseat ‘reading.’ I LOOOVE that she will pull out books and just look through them and ‘read’ with her gibberish. We have sooo many books and they are her favorite ‘toy.’
My daughter asks me to sit criss-cross applesauce so she can sit in my lap.
Book time is my favorite part of the night. She knows most of her books by heart now. But when she gets a new one, the look on her face is priceless! She gets so excited!
Which makes me think… I should go buy her a new book today.
Our children must be kindred spirits, because this is essentially how the end of our days goes. The only downside (if it can be called that..) is that she occasionally has a full blown whack-attack because she wants to read “so many”, rather than the five we’re cutting her off at that particular night. At first I thought it was a stall tactic for bedtime, but then we she wakes up and goes over to that same pile and picks up where she left off, I know she truly loves books. Swoon.
I totally want to read a book nerd too.
Last week while we were all sick, there was totally a day where all I wanted to do was read MY book. I told Lizzy that it was reading day, and she pulled her books up on the couch next to me and we read. I justified the lack of parenting that day by telling myself that it’s good for her to see her mama reading
Love it! My girls do the same. As an English teacher I can tell you read to him as long as he will let you! It is so good for them. Good job mama
Babysitters Club!!! I was OBsessed with it. I definitely read every one…my grandmother would buy me the newest right when it came out, and every time that manilla envelope arrived in the mail I thought I’d die with excitement.
My little boy LOVES books too!! His preschool teacher says he’s a “pre-reader” and it’s bananas to see him really recognizing words and sounding them out. He wants us to spell everything, all the time.
At night he dawdles so much, we’ve started using a timer and if he doesn’t get ready on time he runs out of time for his bedtime books. It hurts me to take that away but it’s also the incentive that truly motivates him!