John has hit a stage where he really enjoys reading his board books. Some of them even have special names like Goodnight Moon is "maoohnn." He'll run to us with one his hand, climb up on our laps and wait for the reading to begin. If we're busy with other things, he'll plop down and start "reading" the books to himself. Sometimes I catch him making what sounds like the same voice inflections I'll use, or he'll find the picture of the cat and the dog and make the noises they'll make.
We brought a good number of board books with us and have picked up even more at the library so at any given time we have between 15-20 baby books ready to satisfy John's great need for the spoken, illustrated word. I've read some of these books countless times and during those especially tired moments, I find that these books are starting to become the narrative of my daily life. It's like the song you can't get out of your head.
"John, what would you like to wear today?"
Jesse Bear, Jesse Bear, what will you wear? What will you wear in the morning? My shirt of red...
"John, look. Mama can pick up. Why don't you pick up?"
Judy can pat the bunny. Now YOU pat the bunny.
"Did you go 'boom,' baby?" [e.g. fall down]
BOOM BOOM BOOM Mr. Brown is a wonder! BOOM BOOM BOOM Mr. Brown makes thunder! He makes lightning go SPLATT SPLATT SPLATT and it's very, very hard to make a noise like that!
"Would you like some carrots and peas, John?"
Carrots and peas and a little more please. Celery crunch and sprouts in a bunch. And apple to bite and a mustache of white. Juice from a pear and rice in my hair...
"Look sweetheart, a dog. What does a dog say?"
...and three little dogs go RUFF RUFF RUFF! Some other dogs go BOW WOW WOW! And cats and kittens say MEOW!
"Goodnight sugar pea"
Goodnight stars. Good night air. Goodnight noises everywhere.
Extra points go to readers who can name any of the quotes from these books.
Monday, October 8, 2007
BOOM BOOM BOOM Mr. Brown makes thunder!
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4 comments:
I know the last two! The last one is from Goodnight Moon, the one board book we already have for Anthony. (He's more into eating them right now, but I figure he'll settle in soon.) The penultimate one I recognize from a book my mom read to ME when I was little, because I remember the last line is something like, "And mommies, say 'I love you'" and my mom would hug me or something like that. (Why am I mysteriously and suddenly shedding tears and hungry for PB&J???) Drat, I can't remember the title of that book...
Really excellent writing, by the way. This was a delight to read.
"Pat the Bunny" was one of my favorite books as a kid. :-) I didn't like the beard, though. It was TOO scratchy!
John just started sitting through whole books and he still likes to chew on them from time-to-time. Michael used to read his philosophy books to him when he was really small. We used to joke his first words were going to be "knight of infinite resignation." (Kierkegaard joke).
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