Pages Ahead
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:47 PM
When I was a kid we didn’t have a television, and my five younger siblings and I loved to read. Our favorite night of the month was Library Night, when our parents would take us to the library and we’d check out a big pile of books. We thought it was cruel of them to limit us to eight books each, but 6x8=48, which is a lot, so I guess they were justified. Anyway, we were voracious readers.
For a long time I’ve been looking forward to having children who would share my love of reading. Then I finally got pregnant, and Camilla was born, and to my surprise… she didn’t love to read. In fact, for a very long time she was far more interested in chewing on books than she was in having me read them to her. I kept on anyway, because they (whoever “they” are) say that you should read to your kids, and also because, frankly, the days alone with a baby were long and Dr. Seuss helped fill them up.
Then, gradually, the thing I’d hoped for actually happened. Camilla started paying more and more attention when I’d read to her, and then she started bringing me books, and then, well, I could barely keep up with her appetite for the printed word. And for the pictures, of course, because she’s not exactly into Austen quite yet. All in good time.
I have visions of someday being able to sit on the couch with my daughter beside me as each of us loses herself in the pages of a book. I know that is many years away; at this point I can’t sit next to Milla on the couch without her climbing onto my lap. But for now, it thrills me every time I realize I haven’t heard from her in a few minutes, peek around the corner, and discover her sitting on the floor, turning pages and utterly oblivious to the world around her.
My girl, she’s gonna be a reader. Just like her mama.
Print Blog
Email a FriendPost a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
