“Where apple go?” “Look, Chloe, It’s next to tree!”
Posted on August 8, 2008
I just spent the last two and a half hours trying to get Chloe to go to bed. Was she throwing a fit? No. Was she destroying her room? No. Was she singing, talking, letting me know she was still awake? No.
What was she doing, you ask? READING! I am not kidding. We still have the baby monitor set up in her room, and even though she is VERY quiet when she is reading, every now and then, the red lights that tell me SOMETHING is going on light up. And when I go in there to check on her…she is sitting in the glider with a book in one hand and two next to her, just…perusing.
John and I are, of course, trying to enforce a consistent bed time routine. Bath, stories, brush teeth, sing ABC’s, go to sleep. However, every now and then, Chloe decides she is not ready for bed, and decides to “read” instead. Of course, the book geek in me is BEAMING with pride. I just want to shout it from the roof tops, “MY BABY LOVES BOOKS!” Hrm..as she should, as all kids should.
But, the mommy in me knows that bedtimes should be enforced. That when she doesn’t get her usual 10 hours or so of sleep, she is a bear the next day.
I just can’t put away that memory of myself as a kid, sitting in my walk-in closet, cushioned by a mountain of clothes waiting to be washed (dirty laundry doesn’t sound as romantic) reading until the sun came up. I DEVOURED books as a kid. My mom would get so frustrated with me because we would go to the library and I would check out my allotted amount, and I would have them read by the next day. Which, of course, meant she had to entertain me for another two weeks or so until it was time to go back to the library.
Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way of my insatiable appetite for books. When I REALLY get into one, the house could burn down around me and I probably wouldn’t notice. Which, when you have a kid, makes things a little more difficult. I don’t read as much as I should. I rely on TV and the internet for the “entertainment” I used to get from books.
When you watch TV, play games, and/or blog, you can multitask. I can literally do all three at once. When I read…I read. Period. The end. No other activity allowed. This includes, but is not limited to…TV, music, husband, and toddler. When I really get into a book, John has to point out that I still have to, oh I don’t know…PARENT or something.
I went up to Chloe’s room tonight with a stern face and voice, and told her that it was bedtime and she needed to sleep. But, in my heart of hearts, I was smiling. She may look like John, but that’s MY kid!