Book Worm

Eli loves books. So does Maddux, actually. I guess that's one thing we've done right as parents: reading to the kids every day at least once a day. I remember when Eli was about seven months old and he was still napping 2-3 times each day. I read one book to him before every nap. One especially trying day I skipping reading for the last nap and he was NOT happy. Which made two of us. Of course I felt guilty during most of that nap and vowed to never miss a book reading again, even though it felt exhausting to me at that point and I wondered if it really mattered at that point. Fast forward a few months later when Eli was crawling around and he would park himself in front of the book shelf and 'read' four or five books in a sitting. If there was any doubt left, it disappeared at that point.

Today was another one of those moments. During blanket time (which I rarely do with Eli anymore), Eli and Maddux were sitting on the blanket reading books. Maddux had open "Go, Dog, Go!". She was kind of reciting some of the words, but Eli was over her shoulder spitting them out perfectly. Then he opened up "Ten Apples Up On Top" and 'read' almost every page. Of course it was all by memory, but he saw the pictures and knew what words went with them. And then on a few pages, he knew the words, but couldn't remember the number of apples, so he would stop (mid-sentence) and count the apples before continuing. My favorite part was when he used animated voices to read the story. "THEY WANT TO GET THEM! WE CANNOT LET THEM GET THEM!!"