Since I knew I was pregnant with Margaret, I have been convinced that I wanted her to love reading. In fact, instead of going out and buying booties or small onesies or what have you to celebrate that I was pregnant, I ordered the complete Beatrix Potter oeuvre, as well as A.A. Milne’s poems and Winnie the Pooh books.
I have read to her a lot, but it is only recently that she has started to listen to me, or indeed sit still while I do it. And then in the last week or two, she has really developed an attachment to books.
This is her in bed tonight.
And this is what bedtime has become. We read Goodnight Moon last, and she carries it in with her, but she also wants a little book that she can manage better. Because, you know, she wants to read it after we leave. In the dark.
But if you listen carefully, you can hear her turning the pages.
And in case you think that this was a one-off, posed picture, here she is two days ago going down for her nap.
She also knows how to ask for her favorite books: “Shush” (mush to the rest of us) is Goodnight Moon. She wants that one a lot. Which is why we own 3 copies, because she wants one for bed (sometimes 2 – board and regular paper) and one for the car. I like to have a surplus in case one gets left somewhere. She also ask for “Rawr,” which is Where the Wild Things Are. We roar for the pages on which the wild rumpus is happening. “Socks” is Fox in Socks, which she enjoys having read to her. And “Fish” is One Fish, Two Fish. But she really only likes that one on the first few pages when it is talking about fish.
