Language

We are a family of readers. VORACIOUS readers. Every room in our house features stacks of books. The boys' bookshelves are packed tight with volumes of Dr. Suess, Berenstain Bears and Thomas the Tank Engine. Dani's shelves are loaded with Harry Potter, Traveling Pants and Lemony Snicket series. The bookshelf headboard in mine and Darren's room currently creaks under the weight of travel guides, books about writing, and assorted works of fiction. Directly across from our bed is a 7-foot bookcase that's full. The bookcase in our front room is full, too. We're getting ready to add built-ins under the windows in there, so we can buy more books and have a place to put them. We love to read.

Every night, the boys take turns picking the story for bedtime. Dani usually reads to them at bedtime - it's their special time together. But last night, she wasn't in the mood to read, so she announced that was going to read the book in a special language.
It sounded something like this: Meow, meow. Meowmeowmeow. MeeeeYow, myow-myow, meow. Mee Yow. The boys LOVED it!

Aidan is beginning to read simple words. Saturday afternoon at Darren's office, he saw a sign in someone's cubicle that featured Scooby Doo. The sign read "Go, Raggy, Go!" Aidan studied it, and excitedly said, "Daddy! That sign says 'Go, Scooby, Go!'" He totally guessed on the big word, but he GOT the little word. (And it's all about the little things, remember?)

This weekend, I added some photos to Aidan's ABC scrapbook. He noticed today, and was not happy with me. "Mommy! You did it WRONG! You put the indians on the wrong page, Mommy. 'Indian' starts with N. Ndian. You put it on the I page, but it starts with N!"

I hated to argue with him, I really did. He's learning fast. Gone are the days when I could be lazy and skip paragraphs and pages in their storybooks. They can't read yet, but they know when I've skipped something, even when it's in a book we've never read before. I'm gonna have to get creative like Dani. I wonder if she's read to the boys in "cow" yet? Moo moo. Moomoomoomoo. Mooooooo.