Read Me a Story

Because I am a children's librarian, I'm sure a lot of you are surprised that I don't write more posts about books. Wesley is a HUGE bookworm and has been since he was only a few months old. As Wesley approaches his fourth birthday (still a couple of months to go) I am constantly amazed by how much he enjoys reading and playing with letters and rhyming sounds.

Today Wesley wanted to take his "word pizzas" to Grandma and Grandpa P.'s. The "word pizzas" are actually simple three card puzzles that spell three letter words. Wesley likes to dump them all out and ask you what kind of pizza he should make. If you say "a car pizza" he'll look for the cards that spell the word "car" and make a picture of it. There's something like 12 or 15 different words in the set and he'll play this game over and over and over.

We listened to "The Cat in the Hat" on audiobook during our drive today too. When the story was over, we spent the rest of the drive coming up with rhyming words. Some of them were real words and some were nonsense, but they all made him laugh.

We just finished reading part of a book of fairy tales. Tonight we read The Gingerbread Boy, Hansel and Gretel, The Little Red Hen, The Three Little Pigs, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to share those classic tales with my little boy. I sometimes worry that kids of today will grow up not knowing those tales so it gives me such pleasure to watch Wesley enjoy them. As I am typing this, Wesley is sitting on the couch playing with his alphabet puzzles. He makes words and matches letters and talks about words that start with each letter.

It makes me so proud to watch his love of books and language grow. Books and literature have always been such a big part of my life. I hope they prove to be lifelong friends of my little boy too. I hope he continues to read for fun. I hope he has a drive to learn. I hope he writes to express himself - poetry, songs, stories - something to capture the incredible imagination that he has. I want so much for my little boy, but a love of books and reading is one of the greatest gifts I could give him.