I have always been a bibliophile. Not only do I enjoy reading books, I enjoy looking at and holding and smelling them. If it were socially acceptable, I would probably lick them. When I was a kid, I used to build little dens and forts in closets and nooks for the express purpose of crawling inside and reading. When we got a clubhouse for our backyard and started a club for neighborhood kids, the first thing I did -- after appointing myself president and writing the club handbook and anthem, naturally -- was set up a lending library. A long-held dream of mine is to one day have an office with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and one of those sliding ladder thingies. And given the choice between going to a movie, watching TV or curling up in a comfy chair with a good book -- well, you get the point.
So, how psyched am I that Clio is suddenly obsessed with books? Quite! She is constantly thrusting them at me, demanding that I read them to her, eager to point out everything that she recognizes. If she sees a bird or butterfly, she'll do the fluttering hands sign for butterfly. An elephant gets our own made-up sign for elephant: arm as trunk, and a sort of trumpeting sound. Horses get bronx cheers (close enough), and cows get "mmm." Mouths (ma), eyes (ah), shoes (shz), cats (ba), fish (shh) and babies (dieh dieh) also get mentions. If she doesn't know the word, sign, or sound for something and wants to know, she'll point at it and say "da da!" and I'll tell her. It's like she suddenly *gets* this notion of words being connected to things, and is desperate to learn them all.
I've always read to the girls before bed, once they're in their cribs. Lately, Clio has been demanding to have her own book, too. The only trouble is, she's very picky. She reaches out toward the bookshelves making that terrible grunting "I need!" sound that toddlers (mine, anyway) are wont to do (ieeeh! ieeeh! ieehh!) and I bring her book after book. She pushes them away, one after another, until I hit on the right thing: The Very Hungry Caterpillar? No, no, too predictable. Noah's Ark? Religious propaganda! Hop on Pop? Don't insult me. Touch and Feel Farm Animals? Touch and feel this!
Eventually, something will strike the right chord. The Rainbow Fish? Hmm....yes, that looks interesting. Let me read the back cover blurbs and the author bio. Hm. Yes, all right. I'll give it a try. If The Guardian liked it, I suppose it can't be too bad... And then she'll plop down on her butt in her crib and read, sometimes with the book right-side up, sometimes not. For the past week, I've left her with a book in her crib to fall asleep with after saying good night. (And several times I've had to go in an hour later and remove said book because she is lying on it, uncomfortable and crying.)
Alastair thinks I'm being too accomodating by bringing her all these books until she finds one she likes. He suggested I just offer her two or three and let her choose one. Yeah. Well. I tried that tonight, and she handily, annoyedly rejected them all and resumed grunting and reaching (ieeh! ieeh! ieeh!) until I brought more. A book from the second round, Baby Kittens, held her attention for a while, but then when I attempted to read some nice, imperialist poems aloud from A Child's Garden of Verses while she looked at her kittens, Clio decided that that was the book she had to have. So I scooped both her and Elsa out of their cribs, held them in my lap (something they're very into lately, to my extreme delight) and started reading them "My bed is a boat." I got about three iambic pentametric lines into it before Clio was crawling across the room looking for something with more farm animals in it.
I don't blame her -- in fact, I commend her -- for being picky. I'm the same way; when I'm looking for a new book to read, I'll often flip through a bunch of them before I hit on one that feels right. And it doesn't always work out. I don't feel compelled to finish books just for the sake of finishing them anymore. There are too many great books out there, and too little time.
I love that Clio wants to read, but not just any old thing. She's a nerd after my own heart.
