Please, play something else...?

I actually don't find the image creepy and, for the most part, Molly has enjoyed this book as it models social rules; but, when pressed for more information, she insisted, "Giraffes don't SKIP!"

Oh, yeah, and if you get a chance...

It's Monday morning, Molly's return to school after a two-week break, and the four of us are getting ready for the day.

She doesn't respond as I announce that it is time for her to leave for school, but Molly often doesn't hear people when she's pursuing an interest. So, I am not surprised when I find her leaning against the princess sofa (our antique chaise longue) as she leafs through a book.

When I see its title, I cautiously ask if she intends to take the book to school.

-- Yes, I think so. For Victoria.

Victoria is a classmate who, it appears, is somewhat fickle in designating BFF status. Something tells me that I lack some critical information about Molly's plans for the day, but she really must leave now.

-- Okay, darling. Let's pack it up, then.

-- I'm going to give it to her at recess and have her read it. Then, she'll know how to behave.

I freeze. My mind races this way and that, searching frantically for a way to dissuade her from the sweet-but-misguided plan while nevertheless lauding this bold attempt to connect with a friend.

-- Well, what if you were to ask Victoria to read the book with you? Then, Victoria could learn about her mistakes without ever being aware of your [intended act of] kindness.

She folds the book under her little arm, furrows her brows, and sets about the task of going to school -- without disclosing her intentions.

I am encouraged by the fact that Molly reaches for books (just as Devyn does) in matters of conflict.

--

How To Be A Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them (Laurie Krasny Brown/Marc Brown)

But a kite...?

Molly: How could there be a kite flown in the house?

Me: Well, I guess if you can imagine a big talking cat with a red-and-white striped hat, you can imagine a kite flying in a house...Hahaha!

Molly: (staring)

Me: See, because large talking cats in tall striped hats...don't...Hee..heh...I mean, they...

Molly: (staring)

Me: They're just ima...Hmm.

Molly: (staring)

Me: 'I bet, with my net, I can get those Things yet...'

I get it. Among other things, there's nothing about the house ostensibly preventing a strange, unrealistically depicted talking cat from appearing because if you can imagine such a talking cat, you could just as easily imagine one appearing in a house; but there are walls and a ceiling preventing conditions sufficient for lift, etc. in order to fly a (comparatively) realistically depicted full-size kite such as those in the characters' hands.

Still, she could have laughed condescendingly while avoiding eye contact or something, right? ;)

Home, Sweet . . .

So, spring has arrived and I have finally gotten around to the posts that I started back in January. . .

I was sad that our last Christmas vacation day had arrived and I asked Molly what she would like to do for fun on January 11th. Engrossed, I was making my way up and down the aisles of our local book store when I cast my eyes around to find a too-quiet Molly--I actually gasped when I saw her!

The employees know us very well. They told me that she was actually pretty safe there and that the structure was very stable. It was impossible to convince Molly to leave.

"Can't we stay a little more longer?"

It is fitting that an hours-long trip to the book store was what Molly wanted.
When we went to pick up Devyn from school? She grabbed a book for the trip.


                                            

The only  difficulty was that, after Devyn's dismissal, I agreed to stay around the school yard so that they could play with some friends. Then, when Devyn went to play, Molly and I leaned against a fence while she begged me to read about static electricity with her. I explained that it was far too cold to sit and read (bad mother!) and that she should really be playing instead, but that wasn't what she wanted to do. So, with winter wind chaffing my unprotected cheeks, I tried to sound enthusiastic about electricity instead of lamenting that I had none with which to warm myself at that point in time.

Yesterday, I actually found myself asking her junior kindergarten teacher if Molly could take books to class for recess...I am serious. As it turns out, Molly opted to play yesterday at nutrition break but I guess just knowing that she could look at books instead was good enough for her.

All around the Magic Tree House

While Keith and Devyn continue their nightly Harry Potter club meetings, Molly and I are at an impasse.

It isn't that I don't want to read or that we've run out of material -- we don't agree about which book it is that we should be reading.

It all started at the beginning of September when the girls and I visited a bookstore while waiting for Devyn's evening ballet class. Molly discovered The Magic Tree House: Midnight on the Moon (Mary Pope Osborne), brandished the book before me, and declared it The.Next.Book. that we just had to read.

Well, we started it that week but, by Friday, Molly had discovered a book about ninjas from the selfsame series -- and didn't look back.

(You need to know that she did not know what a ninja is (probably because I didn't know) yet she had decided that it would be far more interesting than the book that I REALLY WANT to read.)

"But," I protested, "we're on the fourth chapter! We can't just leave the story where we left it."

"Yes, we can," she giggled. "We just won't pick it up."

I was frustrated and bemused. (And, hey, did she just engage me in wordplay?) Here we were at the end of the month and we weren't moving forward. Each night since we'd read the third chapter, Molly had chosen a different book -- really, any other book -- to make her point that we would not be reading Midnight on the Moon.

"I thought you love the Magic Tree House?"

"I do love it and we can read it . . .If it's about ninjas."

I had to think about it for a while: what kind of reader was she? I reminded myself that I was dealing with the kid who -- I'm not joking -- used to refer to her alphabet books as nonfiction. Then, it occurred to me and I knew why she had lost interest in the book about the moon (a subject close to her) and I've mentioned it before: Molly loves nonfiction and she loves fiction but she's not terribly keen on the mostly fiction-some fact hybrid. The facts (obviously positioned) in the titles that I've read so far in the Magic Tree House lack sufficient detail to quench her thirst. Put another way, the books contain either too much or too little of the factual to keep her reading.

But, why ninjas? Like any four-year-old, the kid loved and still loves mystery and learning. The world of the ninja had yet to be explored at that point, but I sense that, just as she dismissed both Dinosaurs Before Dark and Midnight on the Moon, she will grow bored and we won't finish the book about ninjas.

After weighing the options, I don't think I should interrupt this emerging pattern because she gets something from her approach-retreat relationship with the series even if I don't know just what that would be. (It may be that she has yet to figure out that each book in the series will be similar in style; maybe she is optimistic).

On the other hand, I recently picked up one of the companion research guides that is available in the series which, I'm confident, would provide the missing facts that Molly wants. Then, the next time that she dismisses a Magic Tree House book, I could reach for a guide and see if that sustains her interest.

Who knows? I just want to avoid the mother-child morass of guidance vs. intrusion because I've learned my lesson with Devyn. Please note that I am patting myself on the back because I haven't pushed the issue of reading these books in sequence (though I really, really want to) because that's my thing, not theirs.

The Mesozoic Era, the Middle East, and Hogwarts

July 22, 2011 - the pop-up dinosaur book

"Here, Mummy! Mummy, here! The Mesozoic Era!" she calls to me as she throws the book on my bed and begins the climb up.

Molly is fascinated by dinosaurs and frequently asks me to read books with her on the subject. Last month, I bought some miniature figures to add to her collection. I thought that we could compare our figures to images in the book for the purposes of identification. She loves that idea.

In June -- I think it was June -- we read Mary Pope Osborne's first in the Magic Tree House series: Dinosaurs Before Dark.

It's intended for children aged 6 to 9 years but the information it contains is pretty scant.  Frankly, I can't imagine a nine-year-old being satisfied with it. I know my four-year-old wasn't; thankfully, however, she's still of an age where meaning is found in amazing, unexpected places, and the mechanism of time travel was more important to her. It didn't matter where anyone landed, just that someone left now and went to then.

I enjoyed reading it with Molly. We call it our first chapter book. I'm not sure that it is our first but it definitely was a good time. I ended up having to teach her, and therefore teach myself, about the Mesozoic Era and the different kinds of prehistoric animals. 

We have a book called My First Book of Dinosaurs which she loves -- we get to look at what modern-day animals may have looked like about 65 million years or so ago.

At the local library, we've spent a lot of time mostly playing and reporting the girls' reading for the book club. Most recently, Molly devoured 35 books as I begged for the opportunity to redirect her. I even told her that it was quite a funny position for a mother to be in at a library: Telling a child to go play--i.e.,instead of reading--isn't something you imagine that you'd hear yourself saying.

-- I want to read 500 books and win the contest!

-- You do? That's a lot of books.

-- Is there a contest, Mummy?

-- No.

-- Oh. How many have we read?

-- Thirty-five. But, if there were a contest, we would have won it.

-- Yay!

I think, however, that anyone listening would have taken my side: My throat was hurting and we were far enough from her goal of 500 books, anyway, that pausing wouldn't have affected our progress.

Among those books was at least one title of the How Do Dinosaurs . . . series by Jann Yolen and Mark Teague. So, really, a day without dinosaurs hasn't gone by this summer.

Then, on August 1, as most of my summer nights have unfolded, I lay back and read another few chapters of Almost Dead by Assaf Gavron -- and finished it! Set in modern Israel, involving two men, one Jewish and one Palestinian, it is a mixture of satire and fact that really has my head spinning. It's clever, far more so than I think that I am able to appreciate at this point in my life, and it's so much funnier than I'd anticipated. 

I suspect that once I start to write about this book, it will go on for years: It's that important to me. Yes, but that's it; I won't say anything more about this book until I have sat down to write about it more meaningfully. 

Meanwhile, at Hogwarts . . .

Devyn and Keith are now reading Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince (6th book). I believe I stopped after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (5th book), so I have no idea what's going on in the series at that point.

Because I'm not part of the Harry Potter book club at home, I asked Keith about his impressions of the reading time that he and Devyn spend together. First, he says, she's "absolutely enthralled" and he is amazed that, at her age (8), she can follow a story so well through six books. She knows the characters very well and understands the significance of plot events.

Each night, before reading, Keith asks her key questions about the prior sitting and asks her to make predictions; he says that she always gives intelligent answers.

What I find most touching is his report that she likes to follow his reading on the page. (Her reading, incidentally, has improved by leaps and by bounds over the past few months.)

Both us of were aware at the outset that the subject matter of the books would be, at times, frightening and mature; Keith says she handles it very well.

She knows the characters and greatly empathizes with Harry.

Though she and I have our books that we plan to read together, I know that Devyn really wants to be at Hogwarts right now with her Dad, so I don't press the issue. Our time to read together again will come, most likely, in a few months.

---

Many changes are taking place here, on this blog, and some of them are not quite finished .

I plan to re-establish links between book images and the relevant blog posts as well as to create more pages . . .

So, don't mind the dust.

The Three Little Pigs: In, Down, Over

We have a number of versions of The Three Little Pigs and, with each version that I read to her, poor Molly becomes frustrated beyond belief.

Why? Because the wolf blows the house in and not down or over. 

Little pig, little pig, let me come in. 

'No, no, by the hair on my chiny chin chin.' 

Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.*

Surely, she has asked me, there is a version that has the correct word? In fact, she can recall that I've read it to her in the past but I have no such memory. I have explained, while stifling a laugh, that the word is used because it rhymes with "chinny chin chin" but it's to no avail. She anticipates, at each sitting, the first huffing-and-puffing episode with hope and, looking up at the ceiling, expresses her disappointment and frustration when the wolf threatens to blow the house in.

Why is she hung up on a preposition? I've wondered. Well, in her world, as I've come to understand it, perfection is something you should expect and which you should want to expect. I'm not exaggerating. Despite all my efforts to explain that perfection is not attainable, that striving towards it leads to strife, that everyone has to accept degrees of imperfection and accommodation, the child will not believe me. YOU may settle for imperfection, but she will not.

That many things come easily to her only reinforces her drive. As such, we had the following conversation on May 6:

– Why do you like everything to be perfect? 

– Because everything is boring if it isn't perfect.  

– What does being perfect mean?  

          – Getting things perfect.

– How can you make mistakes if everything has to be perfect?    

– I won't. 

– I make mistakes and I'm not perfect. Is that OK? 

          – I'm perfect.

It not only extends to conversations but to interactions in general. She exacts perfection from the world. Honestly, I didn't quite know what to say the other day when, as a friend of hers expected a gaming device to be charged immediately after plugging it in, Molly, in a world-weary kind of way, snapped: "Just let it suck up some electricity first!"

She also has an adorable, if perplexing, habit of telling you to say something:

– Is this a good idea, Mum? Say, 'That's a good idea'.   

– That's a good idea.

In this way, she constructs the world as she likes it. Lately, we've taken to imitating her in a very affectionate way:

– Is this a good idea, Mummy? Say, 'That's a good idea.' 

– That's a good idea, Daddy.

But, as you might expect, she doesn't like this at all as, we've discovered, she has a proprietary attachment to this manner of speech:

– Hey! You can't say that, Daddy! 

– Why not? 

– That's MY expression.

Of course, we find her adorable as everyone finds their children adorable. Devyn, however, has another approach which is completely understandable:

– Devyn, why didn't you repeat what she said to say?   (I asked, out of curiosity, one day.) 

– Oh. I never say what she commands me to say.

And, that, I've concluded, is how the rest of the world is going to react to our little perfectionist; so we don't correct Devyn's behaviour and, surprisingly, Molly doesn't ever press the issue with her.

This disposition of hers may be advantageous in the area of computer games. Unfortunately, she gets upset when a computer game doesn't behave in a way that she would like it to: If she thinks a snowman should be able to be increased to 2x its size but the game only allows 1.5x, then Molly gets emotional. She used to throw tantrums at two and three years old and each session invariably ended with me telling her that, if she was going to play a game, she would have to follow its rules and not get upset; otherwise, she'd have to turn to another activity.

Keith explained it to her this way: "The only way that you will ever get a game to do exactly what you want is to program one yourself." She seemed to understand this but it was little consolation.

Thankfully, she is obsessed with The Magic School Bus cartoon and books and the teacher, Ms. Frizzle, in the cartoon always says, "Get out there and make some mistakes" or some such thing, which emphasizes my own words that sum up the we-learn-by-making-mistakes approach to life. She takes it all in--over and over and over again--but she doesn't agree.

So, when I correct her behaviour, she quickly points out, "This is MY way of doing something." Frankly, this is fine if she's drawing or creating but not if she's doing something dangerous or unacceptable.

Molly will ask me—or her father—to please use the word "down" if we're going to read the story of The Three Little Pigs to her. I don't see anything wrong with doing so and she doesn't care about losing the rhyme scheme.

Perhaps she'll create computer games one day. Last year, she wanted to be a "brain doctor" or a "muffin maker"—it was all so unclear to her. She tells me these days that she will, in fact, be a doctor; but, no matter how capable she becomes of creating things or of fixing people, the wolf will always blow the house in, and not down or over, as long as she's reading somebody else's work. Life's just like that. Of course, she could decide to write her own version of The Three Little Pigs. . .
__


Attributions:
 Illustration by Leonard Leslie Brooke. 1904 adaptation. (source: Wikipedia)
*Jacobs, Joseph (1890). English Fairy Tales. Oxford University. pp. 68–72. (source: Wikipedia

The Perils of a Good Book - 1

Distraction

(Or, Why I may have to walk Molly to university when the time comes . . . )

I bit my tongue so that she could see, in a safe way, just how dangerous such a budding skill can be. At this point, it is best reserved for the park with your mummy. 

Being and wellness

We visited the library, Molly and I, last week. I was able to see marked changes in her social development. Whereas she used to tell everyone that she was "unavailable" to play with them—even issuing directives through me in advance of social activities—she now plays easily, comfortably, with others.

She does insist that she doesn't often like other children very much but concedes that playing with some of them can be fun. She refuses to designate someone a friend unless she, among other things, clearly knows and likes the person, but she will not necessarily turn someone away from play now in the absence of her strict criteria. She may not make eye contact but we know that she can and will do so. She is also quite, er, given to leadership and has the strength of her convictions, too.

In conversation, for example, with a clerk in the children's section, this was amply demonstrated as he was just about to get rid of an empty tissue box.

"What are you going to do with that?" she asked, as she walked over to him.

"This? I was just going to recycle it."

"You shouldn't do that. You don't need to do that. You should reuse it first."

"Uh, really?" He cast a glance at me. "What should I do with it?"

"Well, you could put it on your desk right here on the corner or there," she pointed, "and put things in it."

"Yes," he conceded. "That's a good idea."

"You could also hang it on the wall for decoration."

"That's true. Wow, you have a good imagination."

"That's not imagination," she asserted, her brows furrowing to create an expression that, I swear, I first observed in the hospital nursery almost four years ago.

"I mean that you have a good imagination to come up with those ideas."

"That's not imagination," she persisted. "Those are facts."

He raised his eyebrows, looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. What could I say?

But as happy as I am that Molly is developing socially—at least, she isn't holding up her hand as she has for the past two years and stating, "I'm not available" as often—there is a discerning guardedness about her, a fearlessness as well as an enviable certitude that remains, and which makes her the little girl that I know.

While being able to watch her interact with others is always enjoyable and interesting to me and the library seems to be one of the best ways in which to do this, there is always a worry that I have when I'm there and as I'm leaving: germs. For no matter how many times I wipe hands and toys, my children usually end up with a cold within a week.

Predictably, then, Molly became ill last week with what I think is the 'flu—not gastroenteritis, but actual, flat-on-your-back influenza. I've suffered from a true, diagnosed case maybe once in my adult life and the aches, lethargy, difficulty breathing, etc. are not easily described (my new grasp of medical terminology notwithstanding). I watched Molly as she lay listlessly, eyes sunken, with a high fever and a cough that caused scream-like cries of distress each time it occurred.

Gone was the "say this! say that!" kind of, er, leadership. Gone, too, were the thirst for knowledge and firm resolutions; no furrowed brows, no "reporting".  This absence of "Mollyness" disturbed me as much as the physical symptoms and signs of the 'flu.

So, last night, after almost a week of worry and sleeplessness, I had an inkling that things were finally changing for the better: her fever was disappearing; there had been only one wakeful period during which she irrationally insisted that I fetch her a juice box (and not that of the ordinary, plastic-container-bound variety), set it on the bedside table, and then she steadfastly refused to drink it. Were her leadership tendencies returning? I wondered.

Today, however, I absolutely knew that she was on the mend when (1) she insisted on "the perfect outfit" of her choosing; (2) she decided on asked me for her favourite snack of boiled eggs and apple; (3) she requested 15 books be read to her before 10:00 a.m., and (4) I walked into the living room and found her curled up beside the library bin like this:

She's coughing, doesn't look like her old self yet, but, at least, she's starting to behave as she usually does. I have to wonder, as the world of medicine becomes less mysterious to me, to what degree is the absence of what we recognize in our children, and in our loved ones in general, part of the actual fear and ordeal of illness? But, as I close this very paragraph, a book lands on my keyboard and Molly says, "Read that!" and I realize that I'll have to muse about this later.

Aliens have invaded my house!

Molly loves the idea of outer space and all that our ideas and images of it in popular culture and science entail: stars, planets, aliens, and rocket ships . . .  She has even, over the past year, discussed her notion of an afterlife (though why or how she was thinking about what happens after death is beyond me): we are all going to end up in outer space at some terminal point.  There's even such a thing as a baby planet, she tells me.

Just a few days ago, out of the blue, she informed me that it's perfectly safe to go to outer space, to ride in a rocket ship, without your mother.  I agreed.

Still, I was surprised a few weeks earlier when I thought I could hear Keith reading aloud and, when I peeked around the corner, there he was, cuddled up with both girls, in his office. He was reading, My Teacher Is An Alien by Bruce Coville.  So, she had succeeded! I concluded.  Such interest and determination! Molly had finally convinced someone to read that book to her because she realized that I had been stalling. 

I did indeed stall on more than one occasion by asking her to tell me what she thought the book was about, what do the (few, black-and-white) pictures mean, etc. and then proposing some really exciting activity that could have us leave the book until another time.  I hadn't fooled her.  I just didn't think the book was appropriate for her yet I've always had a pretty liberal stance in that regard.  The target audience was 9-12 year.  It pushed the limits of my own belief that books shouldn't be off-limits.

As she and Devyn were both enjoying it nightly, calling repeatedly for "just one more chapter", I saw no reason to intervene or to object.  But I was still a little uncomfortable.

Fast forward to last week's Friday movie night.  Aliens in the Attic was the decision but I immediately grew uncomfortable with  the idea. This state was only exacerbated by almost everything said and done in the film up to the point that I, finally, convinced Molly to come upstairs with me.  I was drawing a line.

"Come on, Molly. This movie's not for you.  Let's go upstairs."

"It's fine. I'm OK."

"Molly, I'm telling you that the movie's not appropriate. I'll read a story and we'll cuddle."

"No, Mummy. The movie is just fine. Please, stop."

"Molly, the movie is NOT fine.  There is violence and . . ."

"It's not violent. I'm going to be OK."

"There's a gun!"

"It's a paintgun!"

"But it is for shooting with, so it's a weapon of violence."

"It just shoots orange stuff on somebody and it doesn't even hurt.  It's not a REAL gun."

"Molly, I'm not comfortable with you watching this and I've made my decision."

"Here," she says, getting to a standing position on the sofa. "Maybe if I cuddle in your lap, you'll feel better."

I'm holding her at this point.

"I get to make these decisions because you're only three," I speak into her copious hair.

"I'm not three! I am 3 and 3/4's!"

Well, folks.  I did win.  It wasn't lost on me that, if she could argue so well, she would probably have been just fine watching the movie.  Grey areas.  Gotta love 'em.

Damage control . . .

I'm reading a magazine right now. (It's a Royal Conservatory of Music concert brochure.)

That's good, Molly.

Is this a big girl book?

Yes. But I'm not a big fan of telling you what you can or can't read.  If you like it, that's good.

Grandma says little girls should read books for little girls.

Yes, well, as I told you yesterday, Grandma knows some things but I know more.

David, Goliath and Molly (Age 3)

Molly, this morning, announces that she wants to look at science books.  I explain that the book nearest us is about art.  It's called The Art Book and we inherited it from Uncle Walt a few weeks ago.

She flips deliberately through the pages until she lights upon Castagno's The Young David which has a picture of Goliath's head lying beneath the legs of a victorious David.

"Why is the man in the mud?"

I try a number of explanations avoiding certain words until I find one that's most comfortable to me: Goliath was a monster and David was a hero for confronting the monster.  I honestly consider giving her the details and using the conventional words to describe what happens in the story but it seems too soon, too harsh.

"Why was David a hero?"
"Why was Goliath a monster?"
"Why is he in the mud?"

Then, I manage, for the moment, to divert her to other pages but she wants to return to The Young David.  She likes Mary Cassatt's Woman Sewing in a Garden.  She loves Cezanne's La Montagne Saint Victoire Barnes and traces a mountain with her finger as she describes climbing up and then down it and I can't help but wonder if she'll love art as she grows.

I love these moments together and our mornings and Molly's learning.  She directs me and asks me and wants me to know things so that I can teach her.  I know nothing about art history or art but I learn. I learn for her.

Molly lives through pictures and I have an image of her sitting in her stroller at about 7 or 8 months and for the first time purposely turning back through pages in a book to revisit something she liked.  Here, too, she is taking in each detail with equal significance: the green hills, the brown mud, the wavy lines, the sky that could hold a rainbow like the one she saw at her grandmother's house a few weeks ago.

The sun lights up the dining room, exposing motes of dust, and warms the room. The pages are warming, too. I look up from the book for a moment.  Across the table, the keys on Devyn's laptop are hot -- she told me so earlier. Behind this, windows bear evidence of little hands. Through these, I see a dozen or more old-looking balloons on the floor of the porch, left over from Molly's birthday celebrations last week.

Everything today reminds me that Molly is growing up.  We move on to the living room.

"Here," she says, handing me a CD cover of Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet.  "Why is he lying on the stairs?"

I'm suddenly struck by how much attention she pays to her environment.  I start to consider all of the cultural information that she could gather from this living room alone and it seems a bit overwhelming . . .

"Uh, well, Romeo & Juliet is a story about two young people who wanted to be together but their parents wouldn't allow them to be together."

"Why?"

"Well, they had their own ideas about who should be together and why."  I don't know why I avoid talking about the conflict between the families.  I guess I'm caught off guard.

"They were very sad," I explain, "about not being able to be together . . ."

The World of Michelangelo . . . by Molly

"Here," she says, bringing me a book we'd just inherited on Michelangelo. "Read me the words."

"Uh," I manage, trying to figure out where and how I'd start.

I flip to an image of La Pieta. 

"Who is that woman?"

"That's the man's mother."  Carefully sidestep religion -- check!

"What's she doing?"

"She's holding her son . . . Does she look sad?"

"No."

"Does he look sad?"

"No."

"What does he look like?"

"He looks like a bunch of clay."

Another library day

Molly was especially busy at the library today.  It was like a second workout for me.  She learnt how to use the self-service book withdrawal and did so while Keith and I were talking.  One second she was playing at the Thomas table and the next she was balanced on the stool at the machine, clicking "continue" and looking for her card in order to swipe the barcode. I gasped when I saw her. It really was time to go.  Besides, the little children's area was filled to capacity at the end of the school day and we'd already been there for three hours.

Bing - Ted Dewan
Beach Babies Wear Shades - Michelle Sinclair Colman/illus. Nathalie Dion  (x2)
A Bed Full of Cats - Holly Keller
My Very First Look at Sizes - Christiane Gunzi
Now I Eat My ABCs - Pat Abrams/illus. Bruce Wolf (x3)
Disney Bolt: My Hero - Apple Jordan
The Playground - Debbie Bailey

Both Girls
Island Counting 1,2,3 (x4)
Follow Me, Mittens - Lola M. Schaefer - Devyn on her own, too (x2)

Morning

As soon as it felt like morning to me, I went into the girls' room.  I hadn't spoken to them since supper the night before and the babysitter had mentioned a Molly meltdown.  As usual, they were both wide awake.  Devyn was pleased to announce that she had been able to comfort her sister in my absence.  I climbed onto the bottom bunk and covered up to get warm.

"I missed you so so much, Mummy," Molly told me. Then, she reached over me for something.

"Well, what did you girls do last night while I was out?"

"Here," Molly said, shoving a book into my neck. "Read this."

"OK," I croaked through neck pain. "I will, but I want to know how your night was first."

"Read this! Read Olivia! I want you to read Olivia."

It wasn't just Olivia; it was Olivia Saves the Circus and probably my least favourite Ian Falconer book.  I groaned inwardly.

Molly opened the book to the first page. "Please read Olivia, Mummy."

She wouldn't be deterred.

So started our day.  Then came the usual requests to go to the library but we both have trouble understanding why it's closed on Mondays. Tomorrow, however, is Tuesday and I promised we'd go right after my training session.

It was great to see Devyn reading after school.  Instead of becoming frustrated when encountering unknown words, she actually welcomed help from me.  She was very excited about two nonfiction readers -- one about cats, the other about dogs -- that she'd signed out of the school library.  We read the book on cats at bedtime.  Molly, who refuses to nap during the day, was exhausted from a late night and preferred to take things apart today though we did thumb through some volcano books.  She didn't even request that I spell words for her and help her print them!

Notes / A slow day

Robin Hill School: First Day of School - Margaret McNamara/illus. Mike Gordon
Scarecrow - Michael Rex (x2)
Doodledog - Eric Seltzer
Tiny Goes to the Library - Cari Meister/illus. Rich Davis (x2)
Robin Hill School: Earth Day - Margaret McNamara/illus. Mike Gordon
Sam Goes To School - Mary Labatt/illus. Marisol Sarrazin
Crossing the Street
Apple Trouble! - Ragnhild Scamell/illus. Michael Terry
Bear Feels Sick - Karma Wilson/illus. Jane Chapman
The Colours of Us - Karen Katz

An Experiment

I've been trying to decide how to keep track of the girls' reading. This blog is not simply about their reading but I think it ought to be included:

(1) Devyn, 6, in French Immersion, needs to read in French; but, I also wish to make sure that she can read in English as well, long before it's introduced as a subject in school. Posts about her will include both French and English titles.

(2) Throughout an average day, while Devyn's at school, I often guess at how many books Molly, 2, has requested that I read; keeping track gives me that, and other, information.

In both cases, I will be able to track developing interests and gain a deeper understanding of their personalities.  I want to see exactly how much I've learnt and how much they have changed by the end of December 2010.

So, there will be posts that contain nothing but lists of books which may bore the reader to tears; but, hopefully, other posts will compensate. I won't publish the list-of-books posts to the feeds.

Notes / Molly reading

We exhausted yesterday's lot from the library, so Keith dashed out to the library before it closed this evening for our weekend's stash. By 9 a.m., about half the books had been read. We slowed down as the day wore on.

Volcano! - Ellen J. Prager/illus. Nancy Woodman
Jazz Baby - Lisa Wheeler/illus. R. Gregory Christie (x2)
How's the Weather? It's Stormy! - Julie Richards
We Need Doctors - Lola M. Schaefer
I'm Going to New York to Visit the Lions - illus. Tanya Roitman
Caillou: The Shopping Trip - Nicole Nadeau/illus. Claude Lapierre
Biscuit - A. Satin Capucilli
Biscuit Takes A Walk - A. Satin Capucilli
I Want To Be A Doctor - Dan Liebman
Earthquakes - Ellen J. Prager/illus. Susan Greenstein
Grumpy Bird - Jeremy Tankard (x2)
Sesame Street: B is for Books - Annie Cobb/illus. Joe Mathieu
Our Earth - Anne Rockwell
Finding Nemo: Just Keep Swimming - Melissa Lagonegro/illus. A.P. Harchy
I'm a Caterpillar - J. Marzollo/illus. J. Moffat

Somewhere among the last three titles, the poor kid threw a tantrum because I couldn't read to her. As she has done since a young toddler, she forcefully pushed the book into my lap. When that didn't work, she tried opening my hands in order for me to grasp the book. I kept resisting, all the while gently reminding her that I would be available to read to her once I had completed something. Finally, I won and she burst into tears. Let's hope tomorrow goes more smoothly.

Devyn was sick with a stomach bug today -- having fallen ill yesterday afternoon -- and has slept most of the day as well as watched movies and played games.

Notes / Books read Molly today

Biscuit Wins A Prize - A. Satin Capucilli
Biscuit's Big Friend - A. Satin Capucilli
Biscuit and the Baby - A. Satin Capucilli
What Was I Scared of? - Dr. Seuss x4
Fifteen Animals - Sandra Boynton x3

The library

Spots and Dots
Island Counting 1, 2, 3 x3
Baby Sign
Caillou at the Theatre
Caillou at a Fancy Restaurant
Ruby Bakes a Cake - Susan Hill/Margie Moore
I'm going to New York to Visit the Lions - illus. Tanya Roitman

Molly and the Middle East

I'm lying in bed with my latest book propped up against my knees. A sickly Molly is lying beside me because her illness has been concerning despite antibiotics. I'm exhausted but she's not tired.

"Molly, you need to go to sleep. I'm doing research."

She loves to "do research" with me. So, really wanting her to go to sleep, I realize I shouldn't have said this but, oh well. You can't unring a bell.

"So, tell me about that fancy pen of yours," she says, smiling up at me. It's often easy to forget that she's only two but, at this moment, the fact that she's only two has hit me. Hard.

"It's a highlighter," I explain, a sense of dread creeping up on me because I have taught her not to write in or otherwise destroy books. Could I really end up unravelling a couple of years' worth of her learning in this regard, end up changing her relationship with books?

"How does it work? How do you draw with it?"

"Well, you don't draw with it. Sometimes, in special circumstances, in special books, for special reasons like research, you use it to mark words that you want to remember."

She's really happy to learn, I think, that she may one day be able to write in books and she asks me to show her what highlighting a word actually means.

It's not a "dry" read by any means -- a memoir of travels in a Middle Eastern country -- but I can't imagine a two-year-old enjoying it or that I may be able to edit effectively as I read. But she wants me to read aloud.

"It's about a country called Iran," I tell her. "It's part of the Middle East."

"Could we travel to there?"

I pause. I don't want to tell her about visas and the difficulties one apparently encounters while trying to secure them. She is, after all, only two.

"Yes, we can one day."

She smiles and hugs me. For a moment, I imagine the two of us travelling to the far reaches of the globe together.

"We can travel there now, tho', in our imaginations. We can pretend we're there. Books help us do that. You can go all over the world by reading books."

And I start reading to her. There's really nothing obviously inappropriate in the passages I've reached thus far and, when something questionable arises, I omit it. If she notices, she doesn't let on. She listens attentively as the narrator recounts how his faith in humanity has been restored following an act of kindness by locals.

Time has stopped for a brief period. I'm no longer thinking that it doesn't feel like 8:30 at night; I no longer feel exhausted. As the story escapes my mouth and the words fall and settle between us, there's a calm sense that she and I have started something that we'll always love to do together.