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Establishing the good habit of reading for your young children, connecting with your young on a day-to-day level, a good ritual to keep! Translated…
After soccer camp that day, the three of us stood outside the schools, waiting for the bus.
The winter had not yet left, but the children chased away the cold with their bright laughter. As the brothers were getting bored, they’d started making up their own games to play. The rule of the game was a staring contest, and whichever one that makes the other laugh wins. I saw the two of them, raised up their brows, squinted toward one another, scrunched up their noses, and, within ten seconds, they’d started laughing, both sides lost. Looking at them, it’d made me happy, the kids can always find something interesting to entertain themselves in the ordinariness of life.
We’d waited a long time, the bus hadn’t arrived, the two of them started losing their patience, and, started hitting each other instead of playing nice, to prevent the war from raging out of control, I’d pulled a novel out of the bag, and asked, “Would you like me to read to you guys?”, I’d thought they’d behaved like when they were young children, rushing over, and, back then, as my friend saw, she was in awe at how my sons were taken by my stories, but this time, my older boy said without thinking, “NO!”, seeing my face, he’d added, “Mom, if I read it myself, then, I get to see the images pop out, you know? All the characters would leap off the book and speak to me!”, that fifth grade boy before me, had already gotten to my chin, but I’d still missed that young child who had difficulties pronouncing words with “d” and “g”, the one that wrapped around my legs, and BEGGED me to drop my household chores to play with him, that three-year-old boy.
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My son’s rejection was like this hook, that hooked my interaction with my young nephew from that evening. He’d loved following me to the study, I thought that I could use the toy bin to drain out his energies, so I can finish my business, but he’d looked back at the bookcases, then around the room a couple of time, said in a childish voice, “Aunty, can you read to me?”, I was surprised to hear this request I’d not heard a long, long time, I’d become, willing, to read to him. That day, he’d pointed to the illustrations, and giggled, and asked me a ton of “Whys”, it’d given me back the time when my sons fought to get into my lap, hollering, “Mommy, I want this one!”, “Me first, mommy!”, those were the endless times of wonder we’d gotten to share.
And so, this, is the wonderful thing that you get when you read to your own young, and this woman’s children are old enough to be able to read on their own, which was why the boys turned their mother down, and, it took the woman back to when she’d spent a night with her young nephew by her side, when she’d, read to him, and it brought back the memories of her and her sons’ reading times together from before.
Life, the Obstacle Course 