New Reading Era

I love to read, and have as long as I can remember. It seems that there are very few adults who love to read. There is so much knowledge and pleasure to be gained from reading. I find it so sad when someone tells me that they don't enjoy reading. What a wonderful world they are missing out on!! It is so important to me to share my love of reading with my children. I desperately want for them to grow up with a love of books. The key to this is simple in my opinion. You read to them!! Not just any books, but rich, "living" books, that capture their interest and spark their imagination. While this was simple to do with Naomi, it has proven a bit more challenging with Nathan. First, I'm just that much busier with two kids. Second, Nathan is such an active baby, that it can be hard to get him to hold still long enough to get through more than a couple pages. I make a point to read to him when he first wakes up, as he is calm and cuddly. Up to this point he doesn't seem to mind my reading efforts, but he hasn't sought it out either. Until yesterday. And today. We have had a breakthrough!!

His favorite books are the Spot Books because he loves to lift the flaps. His favorite book by far is "Where is Spot?". Yesterday he picked up that book and squealed. I looked, trying to figure out what he wanted. To my great joy, he wanted me to read to him!! We read the book three times in a row!! This morning he went to the shelf where I keep his books, and pulled them off until he found "Where is Spot". He managed to drag it across the room to me, (no small feat when you are only crawling) and held it squealing until I read to him again! I couldn't be more thrilled!

Sorry for the terrible quality of this photo. I had Naomi read the book to him again this morning while I grabbed my phone to snap a quick picture. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a new era of reading for Nathan!!

Karla