Don't Skip Over the Words

September 21, 2010

My daughter and I read every night before bed. Sometimes, we read five books or more, and sometimes we can only manage two. It all depends on how late it is, how tired she is, and how long the books are. Typically, she will choose the books with the most words in them on the nights when I am trying to streamline our reading to accommodate a rational bed time. As with many kids, she often enjoys hearing the same story, time and time again.

The other night, we were reading a book about fairies, and each fairy got to color the food in her picnic basket by waving her magic wand. On the night of the second reading as I was getting ready to turn to the last page, my daughter put her hand in the middle of the book to keep me from continuing. She just sat there, scrunched up her forehead, and slowly said, "The thing is, last time we got to know what foods were in each basket and this time we didn’t." As she sat there bewildered, I was proudly commending myself for teaching her such great reading comprehension skills, and at the same time, chastising myself for skipping over such obviously critical information. Of course, she would notice that I skipped that part - it took half of the last night to get through the list the first time.

I relish every minute I spend with her and continually remind myself that things, which are trivial to me, may be important to her. So very patiently, we went back to the baskets to mention the red strawberries, red tomatoes, yellow corn, orange oranges…until each and every colored food was given its proper attention. Thank Goodness!

As she happily drifted off to sleep, all I could think was, "Man, I am in trouble when she starts reading. I can hear it now."

"That's not what it says!"

Jacqueline R.
Blue Springs South Branch