Reading and other treasures….
Chicken crawled into bed with me this morning as usual after Ben left and the first thing he asked me was. ” Can we look in your big trunk?” I asked him why? He said you know that little house you have? Can we look at that? I told him after breakfast maybe we could dig it out and look through it. So right after breakfast he was on me about looking in my trunk.
I love antiques and the first antique I ever bought was a yellow humpback trunk from the 1890′s. I got it when I was about 14 and over the years I have filled it with things that were special to me. Notes from my mom, a special red bear from my best friend who is no longer here and a few toys that I loved from when I was little. This “house” as Chicken calls it is a Charmkin’s Windmill I got when I was about 10 for Christmas one year. I played with that thing so much it was one of the toys I kept and put in my trunk. I have showed it to the Chickens once but have never let them play with it. As we hauled the trunk out and started digging through it we came across all kinds of treasures. Some from when I was really little some from not to long ago. My hospital bracelet from when I had Kyra and an ultrasound picture of Chicken. We finally found the Windmill and I let them play with it for a while. I told them to be very careful because it was very special to me.
While they played I read a chapter of The Borrowers by Mary Norton to them. I have started reading them chapter books. My mother read to me when I was little and I loved it. She read books that were way above my head but I think it instilled a love of reading in me. I devoured books when I was younger. I was reading Gone With the Wind by the time I was eleven. I want to instill the same love of reading in my children. So I plan to read to them and I hope they will receive the same enjoyment from it that I did as a child.
I wish my parents had done more to inspire me to read. I struggle with reading to this day. Not in my reading ability. Or my comprehension. But I don’t devour anything I read. I read only a step or two up from skimming. And unfortunately, my retention is shit because of it.
Early on I saw my bad traits surfacing in my daughter. And I refused to let her follow in my reading footsteps. I might not have gone about it the right way (forcing her to read), but it definitely worked out in the end. She LOVES to read now. And I see her devour the books she reads. I envy that in her.
I sincerely hope your children have the same love of reading too.
I am so glad your daughter loves to read. I sincerely hope mine will love it too. I think it’s a learned habit. I hope reading to them will pay off:)