home renovation

Tonight, after I nursed Kaden and tried to put him down, he started to cry.  He was not interested in sleep.  I swaddled him up, cuddled Mr. Swaddle Bug on my lap and we read this together:

He stopped crying and stared at the pictures while I read him one of the simplest stories ever written.

Then I sang him a lullaby and rocked him to sleep (because I do naughty things like that instead of letting him "learn to self soothe" in his crib).

My mom read this book to me, and Chad's mom read this book to him.

Kaden loves to be read to, and I think that is awesome.  Some of our other favorites at three months old are If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Corduroy, Hop on Pop, Guess How Much I Love You?, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (OK, so I might have lied about that last one).

On Friday, I had a conversation with one of my student's parents.  He failed my class last nine weeks, and his father is obviously concerned about his grade.  This is how my favorite line in the conversation went:

"Well, he hates to read.  I hate to read, and his mother hates to read.  There ain't nothin' we can do about that."

It's times like this that I am thankful I'm having a conversation over the telephone and not in real life.  This way, I can make whatever facial expressions I want and no one is the wiser.  Luckily, since it was only day two in my return to public education, and I have yet to reach the state of exhaustion that will likely accompany the end of the semester, I was able to refrain from making the following comments I wanted to make:

"That is an extremely sad and uneducated comment."

"Perhaps your child's lack of interest in my subject area should warrant his removal from an HONORS level course."

"Perhaps we can do something about his laziness, even if you seem to lack the skill to spark his interest in reading."

I do not know if Kaden will be a reader when he grows up.  I certainly hope so, but I also know I can't choose what my child will love.  I'm not going to deceive myself into thinking that because he will snuggle with me and enjoy a picture book now he'll be a bookworm when he's older.  Having said that, my mom certainly shaped me into the reader I am today.

I am thankful for a mom who held me in her arms while she read me Goodnight Moon.  And I'm glad it didn't stop there.  I am thankful for a mom who giggled with me while we read all of the Ramona Quimby books together, and all of the other chapter books she snuggled with me through at bedtime.  Most of all, I'm thankful that she talked to me about what I read while I was in high school.  I'm thankful she littered our house with books and that I saw her reading them.  Books on the night stand.  Books in the bathroom.  Books on the kitchen counter.  Always books.  It's still that way.  One of my favorite parts about going home is seeing what new books are hiding in various parts of my parents' house--there's always something to read and talk about. 

Mom, I am so glad you're a reader.


And I'm so glad that I get to read to my little boy.