Why so many books? There is an incredible drive inside of me to raise kids who love to read. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because it is something that I love to do. Maybe it's because I think that kids who are avid readers will have a leg up academically. Maybe it's because I can remember how, as a kid, books transported me to a different place and let my imagination soar. Whatever the reason, I know that I would be a very sad mommy if the only time my kids ever picked up a book was when a teacher said they had to. I want them to enjoy it so much that they do it for their own pleasure. It would break my heart to to hear them say something like "reading is boring." I am doing my best now to make sure that day never comes...
I have read to both of my kids since the day they were born.
I remember reading novels out loud to Nicki as I breastfed her when she was an infant. And from a very young age she would happily listen to anything and everything I pulled out to read. Eventually she would be the one to toddle over to the bookshelf and make a selection, promptly bring it back to me holding it up for me to see, and point to herself as her way of saying "Please read me this book!" I constantly obliged. If there was one thing I could never deny, never be too busy for, it was reading to her. I would always stop what I was doing, no matter what it was, to read her a book if she brought one over to me. Books were a large part of our days and we made them a part of various rituals, like "digestion story time" after meals when she was very young, and included them as part of her pre-nap wind down. Of course bedtime stories (or "snories" as we now call them) were a must, but really there was no time that wasn't a good time to read. By the time Gabe was born when Nicki was just shy of 2 years old, she already had a solid foundation for her love for books. I wondered to myself if I would be lucky enough to have 2 kids with a passion for books and what I could do to help foster the same enthusiasm in Gabe as I had in Nicki. I knew that there would be much less time to devote to reading, just due to the simple fact that having two kids is a much busier life. I tried my best to read to him as often as possible, but I am the first to admit that it wasn't nearly as often as I had with Nicki. I was worried for a while when he was a baby because he just didn't seem to want to sit and listen to anything I chose, but eventually I figured out that it was because I wasn't choosing what he wanted to hear! Unlike Nicki who would listen to anything, he had a select few books that he wanted to hear over and over and couldn't care less about the rest. And that was just fine with me! I read the same 3 books to him till I was blue in the face and didn't mind it one bit. His obvious happiness each and every time was all I needed. Every once and a while I would throw in a different selection and judge his reaction. Some days he would turn away, other days he would listen to a page or two, and on the rarest of occasions he would listen to the entire thing. It was this strategy that made his list of favorites slowly increase and as he started to be mobile enough to crawl over to the bookshelf and make his own selections, I was surprised (and thrilled) to see that every now and then he would pull out a book he had previously snubbed.
Now at 17 months old, I am happy to say that reading appears to be his number one favorite thing to do. He will bring me books all day long and if he sees that I am in the middle of something like making lunch, he will happily sit and "read" by himself. Often I have looked up from the food I was preparing in the kitchen to see the two of them side by side, happily looking at books on their own.
Gabe will even sit and listen to much longer selections now, which is fantastic because I can read books to both of them at the same time that they both find interesting, something I couldn't really do before. Either Nicki would get bored with the 10th reading of Hop On Pop or Gabe wouldn't stick around for the entire length of Dora Climbs Star Mountain. So when I found that the book Nicki chose might be too long for Gabe to handle, I would often compromise with her and tell my own story about the pictures in the book, which gave them both the general idea of the story without being on each page for an eternity reading every word. Now he is happy to listen to all of the words (most of the time!) which makes Nicki happy too. I knew for sure that I had a reader in Nicki when we went to the library last summer, which we did just about every week, and she jumped up and down and exclaimed "Mommy, I'm so excited!" You seriously would have thought I had taken her to a toy or candy store. And now I know I have a reader in Gabe too, because whenever we drive down the street that leads to the library, he starts shouting "Brary! Brary!" from his car seat and looks so sad if we drive on by. I take them to the library every other week now and it's such a great time for the 3 of us. We look at a ton of books and always borrow the maximum allowed. Both kids know where their favorites are; Nicki knows where to find all of the Franklin, Berenstain Bears and Arthur books
and Gabe knows which aisle has the Sesame Street books and which one has the Dora books. I hope with all of my heart that this love of reading will continue for the rest of their lives. I hope it never gets to the point where they see my enthusiasm for it and decide that it's uncool. Which brings me to an amazing scene I saw one day at the library when we lived in San Diego. I was there with Nicki reading some board books when two kids about 8 and 10 years old walked over to the couch-like chairs and sat down side by side. They dove right in to the book that each of them had brought over and every once and a while one of them would nudge the other and share something from their own book that they found interesting or amusing. They would share a laugh or a smile and then return to their own reads. I watched with fascination as these kids bonded over books and clearly enjoyed their time together. A little while later their mother came over with a younger sibling of maybe 5 or 6 and read her own book as the child joined the other two and started reading her selection. As I stared at the 4 of them sitting there so happily together, I hoped and wished with all of my heart that what I saw was really a foreshadowing of my own life and that someday I would be that mom sitting in the library reading books with her kids and savoring every minute of that quiet time together.
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