reading

That Look

Andy comes home today! Sophie has quite the welcome-home plans for him …

My parents came over and treated us to dinner last night. And earlier in my week of solo parenting Owen and James spent the night at my parents’ house, giving me time to tackle my piles while Sophie was at preschool. My mom took this picture of Pop Pop reading to them during their stay.

Also, the sun is shining today.

“Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.” —John Denver

A New Favorite Picture Book

My friend Shruti told me about this book back in December and I just got around to buying it. It’s beautiful and so clever in its simplicity—and my kids love it. (Although Sophie, always the suspicious one, kept asking what would happen if we didn’t follow the directions and just turned the page.) It reminds me, a little, of The Monster At the End of this Book.

You can buy it here (or anywhere but I say here because it’s a favorite).

“A house without books is like a room without windows.” —Heinrich Mann

Finally …

PA256278

the boys sit on my lap, content, happy, calm, and I can read to them. These moments are some of my favorite moments of the day. And it is next to impossible to say “no” when one of them comes to me, eager, book in hand, saying “book,” “book,” “book” over and over and over. Among the many books we own, they typically choose one of five favorites. And insist I read them over and over and over. This is incredibly tiresome but yet, I think back to when they wouldn’t sit still at all. And how I feared I would never get to read to them (how silly, I know). And now, their insistence keeps me from getting much done during the day. I don’t care. Or, rather, I do, greatly, which is why little else gets done.

“Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.” –James Russell Lowell