Our little reader

I thought I had a picture of Thomas reading to add to this, but I can't find it. So I'll have to take one and add it to this entry later...

"Read! Read!" This is a phrase frequently heard around this house. Don't get me wrong, I love that Thomas LOVES to read. But after reading one book for the tenth time in a row, any sane person would start wishing their child would find another interest. Today I've had the following sentence playing over and over in my head: "But that NOOTH GRUSH on my TOOTHBRUSH... Well, some are nice, but he is not." This means that today's favorite book is There's a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr. Seuss (luckily it's the condensed board book version). I'm not ashamed to admit I even started singing it different ways just to give myself some sort of variety. I don't know why he latches on to a specific book like he does, but he does.

For the past few days his favorite has been Yummy, Yucky. I've already decided that my mother needs to be punished for giving him a book that includes the word "booger." Burgers are yummy. Boogers are yucky. The later of those two lines has become, "Putting your finger in your nose is yucky."

I hate to complain about my child's reading habits. The good part is that it is expanding his language more and more every day. Lately he has often been repeating the last word I say on every page. Sometimes he says it before I do! He is always picking up new words and attempting to repeat words after me. For the most part he does very well, except he still has yet to master speaking anything with the letter "L." I know that's pretty common and I'm sure it will come. Until then, the book Is Your Mama a Llama? will have to be a book all about Mamas.

Reading books happens just about everywhere but in the bathtub around here. This is even true at dinner time. Many, many times Thomas will refuse to eat certain things. Then I'll say to him, "If I read you a book will you eat?" and he will quickly respond, "YES!" So I read while I help him eat and he'll gladly clean his plate. Here's a picture from tonight just so you can see what I mean (he was also enjoying putting spaghetti sauce in his hair tonight for some strange reason):


Those little Elmo books get read so much and so often at mealtimes that now when I get to the second to the last page he'll pick it up, say "Page" and flip back to the beginning. Then he'll say "Read! Read!" until I oblige. Of course this trick is especially handy when we are out in public and he is not wanting to cooperate. It usually yields instant results.

So I guess there are good and bad sides to our son's love of reading. And in the end, I know the good far outweighs the bad, it's just sometimes I really start feeling like a broken record! But hey, he's happy and he's learning. So life is good.

Life is not good, however, for his poor crib. We bought...no we (thought we) invested in a nicer crib for him. We figured we'd use it for all of our children and though we didn't buy the top-of-the-line model, we didn't scrimp either. So when Thomas started using his crib as a teether long ago, I was nearly sick about it. But I thought I outsmarted him. I bought teething covers for the side rails. It didn't take him long to figure out how to pull them off and I'd find him sitting in his crib chewing on them. So I tied them onto the railing and that worked until then he started chewing on the ends of the crib. So then I tied hand towels down to both ends, covering all but about an inch on either end. And for a long time this has worked just fine. Then the other day I went in to tend to him after I showered and noticed a new "blemish" on the end of the crib. A bit dramatic, but it nearly made me sick!

(The crib does have a "distressed" finish, so the edges are supposed to be "rubbed" like that, but the big chomp is not supposed to be there!)

I picked him up, pointed to the spot and told him "no, no, no" and that he is not to bite the crib. He seemed to understand. Tonight, however, he decided to make the spot a little worse. So again I told him no, and then I worked to fashion an even larger band-aid.

So now his otherwise attractive crib looks quite silly like this:


A bit ridiculous, no?