The Reading Post

You are viewing the moment that my five year old caught reading fever. It happened today in the car, on the way home from school. He pulled his library book out of his backpack, started looking at it, and then started giggling. Though he has been reading signs to us for a few months, it takes prodding and persuasion (i.e. bribes) to get him to read books to us. Until today, when he read books to us, he was reading only words that happened to be next to each other; he wasn't reading stories and loving the characters and wondering what was going to happen next. Today I thought he was just looking at the pictures and giggling because they were funny, but all of a sudden he says, "Mom. Listen to this -- this is funny . . ." and proceeds to read a line to me out of the book (and it was funny). He read the book, to himself, occasionally asking me to help him sound words out, the entire time that it took us to get home. He has known for some time that books are interesting to listen to (I have read the entire Narnia series to him at least three times already), but now he knows that books are interesting to read and he has the power to open up the book himself. I loved this moment.

Another moment I loved today -- walking into the breakfast nook and seeing this:

Mace was apparently doing a little Christmas shopping today.

Here, however, is a moment I did not love:

I will admit, though, that I didn't hate this moment, until he went back into the cabinet for the box of Cheerios while I was still cleaning up the Potato Buds. All this boy is getting for Christmas is a haircut.