The Holidays

We have A LOT of books.  I get a lot of them at garage sales on the cheap.  The girls have always loved to read them.  And even though we have tons of books–it feels like we read the same ones over and over.  We have them all memorized. 

When I read to the girls, and when the girls want to listen to me read, they sit quietly on my lap.  Sometimes I prompt them to end the sentence or I ask them questions, but mostly they just listen.

More often lately, however, I think they’re hardly paying attention to me when I’m reading.  They dilly-dally and squirm and tickle each other.  So, I get frustrated and just stop reading as I struggle to see the words and they seem to be uninterested.  Of course when I stop they protest.  But I have found that when THEY read the book themselves, they can really recite a lot of the lines themselves.  It’s really quite amazing and does something for one’s ego when it appears that your 2-year-old child can sit down and read an entire book.  So, I’m pretty sure they are paying attention when I read, sometimes it just doesn’t feel like it.

So, you might imagine my surprise when Nora sat down on the living room floor yesterday, plucked a book entitled “Hanukkah” from her book bin and, somewhat ironically, broke out into a toddler version of “Jesus Loves Me”. 

???