Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

Celebrating my guilty pleasure…

Author: thenicknick

March is America Reads month.  And if there’s anything I’m likely to encourage or participate in, aside from the consumption of large quantities of chocolate, it’s reading.  Yes, around my house…we love books!

I know that my passion began when I was young.  Very vividly, I recall my mother reading to me at night.  Sometimes my parents took turns.  My favorite books, I saved, knowing that one day I would share them with my own children.  There were a few Golden Books…Where Did the Baby go?.  I kept fairy tale collections and Aesop’s Fables.

Winters in the Adirondacks meant lots of time indoors.  And so I would curl up with a good book, devour one a day, sometimes more.  Then, in high school, while studying French, I was introduced to quite possibly one of the most important books of all…The Little Prince. And now I own three copies of it in two languages.

Friends who have children that struggle to get them to read have asked how I instilled such a love of reading in my kids.  And I think it was a combination of things.  I always kept their books out at their level, right near their toys.  But what probably made the biggest impression was that I would read to them every night.

There’s something to be said for curling up in a rocking chair for half an hour each night with a child that’s all soft and warm and smelling of baby shampoo.  I’d let Rachel, now 15, pick out three books to read.  We had our favorites.  To this day, I can still recite Goodnight Moon almost verbatim.  Rachel would giggle incessantly while insisting I read faster Dr. Seuss’ famous tongue twister, Fox in Socks. And we would rock and rock while enjoying Love You Forever.

It was different when Keenan came along.  He spent six weeks in the NICU before he was big enough and healthy enough to join the family.  My time at the hospital was spent holding him, no small feat with all the tubes and wires, while reading to him.  Naturally, I began with The Little Prince.  And once he had heard it in both languages, he was well enough to come home.

To this day, our study is filled with book shelves, and those shelves are loaded with books.  Asking me to get rid of them would be like asking me to saw off a limb or end a treasured friendship.  I surround myself with all manner of books.  There are those meant for self-improvement, home improvement, and improved writing.  I keep the classics, though I haven’t necessarily enjoyed all of them.  *cough Moby Dick cough*  And I load up on my guilty pleasures, a combination of contemporary fiction and romance novels.  Ahh, escapism at its finest.

The kids have picked up my habit and have their own collections, books that while heavy, have made it through every move we’ve made.  They, too, appreciate a quiet night curled up with a book.

Only my quiet book nights are different now.  Now, when I curl up, inevitably the kids do, too.  And it must seem strange to the outsider looking in, seeing the three of us sharing the living room or my bedroom, all sprawled out reading, but not speaking.  These are moments of bonding, moments to be cherished.

Too quickly the kids were too big for my lap and the old rocking chair.  Too soon they stopped wanting to be read to and instead wanted to read to themselves.  They never stopped asking, however, for my book suggestions…even as their own tastes developed.

We still go to the library on a regular basis.  And I watch with pride as Rachel selects an impossible number of books.  And I remember with amazement the summer Keenan devoured the non-fiction section of the library, starting with ancient civilizations and ending in wars.

See, a love of reading is something to be nurtured.  It begins as a lit match and should become a blazing inferno after carefully being fed the necessary tools.  Books are a comfort, a hobby, a tool.  And it has long been my contention that if the kids can read, they can accomplish anything.

So, this month, begin a healthy new habit, one that you don’t have to feel badly about.  Take time to read.  If you have kids to read to, all the better.  Feed the flame.

Oh, and if you’re wondering how I came to discover that this is America Reads month…thank the Yahoo! Mother Board.  They are responsible for keeping me in the know.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 5:30 am and is filed under Just Sharing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.