The Reader

2.0 has been going to the library with me since he was about a week old.  We are lucky in that one of the local branches of the Davenport Public Library was built about five minutes from our apartment building about a month after we moved into the area in 2010.  Nate and I would go to the library about once or twice a week while I was pregnant and I just kept going even after 2.0 came along.  I'd just wrap him up in his carseat, snap the seat into the stroller, and away we went.

I was an early reader, apparently scaring the snot out of my father when I was 3 by reading the newspaper to him (or so he told me before he passed away in 1992).  I didn't read it in full sentences and I didn't know what the words meant, but I read it to him.  I have loved books ever since.  I read all the time, sometimes four or five books at a time, fiction and nonfiction alike.  I took a book with me almost everywhere before 2.0 was born.

When 2.0 was about four months old, I started reading the Chronicles of Narnia to him.  That didn't work out so well because he had the attention span of...well, an infant.  I quickly gave up reading such a long book to him, but I didn't stop reading to him.  I'd get board books and read them to him, pointing to the pictures and explaining them to him.  By one year of age, he showed an avid interest in reading and books.  Two months before his second birthday, my son started reading words to me.

Today we took one of our many trips to the library and like we normally do, I went immediately to the toddler board books so 2.0 could pick out a couple to look at while we walked through the library.  He wasn't as interested in those as he was the first reader books.  So I picked up several of those, one of which was Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.  We've read that one many times and it's a favorite of 2.0's.  He got very excited when he saw it and reached up for it from his stroller.  He then completely shocked me.

He started to read it out loud.  Not in complete sentences and some of the words were muddled, but he was reading it.  He was also flipping through the pages backwards, but he was reading the story in reverse too.  He said "Not in a train, not in a box, not with a mouse.  I don't like eggs and ham."  He pointed to the pictures that went with the words he was reading and looked up at me, smiled, and went right back to reading to me.

I'm so thankful that he's so interested in books.  He has no idea how many worlds are open to him through the pages.