I Had To Wrestle It From Her Hands

Little Miss has the attitude in life that if you can do it, she can do it better. While this will serve her well later in life, it's also the source of much frustration as the younger sister. Understandably, she doesn't get why it's hard for her to do things that her bigger brother (and Mommy and Daddy) can do so easily.

Reading is a perfect example. While she could read if she tried, the fact that she's the only one in our family struggling with it means she doesn't even want to try. If she can't be the best...

We've been working our way through the Bob Books (which I highly, highly recommend to anyone who is trying to figure out how to encourage a child to read and get more comfortable doing so). I feel like we've been reading them for what seems like years. She'll go through fits and starts where she wants to do them and learn to read and tries hard and then weeks where she won't even look at them because they're too hard and she doesn't know and why won't Mommy just read them to her?

I know she won't go to college not reading, though, and she'll figure it out at her own pace, so I don't worry about it or push her to read the books when she isn't into them. That said, she knows the rule in our house is that she can't get a library card until she has finished the Bob Book series.

Last night, I mentioned to her that her kindergarten class was going on a field trip to the library. Again. She asked if she could check out books if she had her own library card, and yes, she can. Her school has parents send in the cards, and then they manage book checkout at the library. It's pretty cool, and it's yet another reason why I love love love the school she's attending.

She thought about it for a moment before looking up at me. Mommy, I want a library card tonight.

Ummmm, ok? Well, Sweetie, you have homework we have to finish before we can read any of the Bob Books. And you do realize that we have to finish Set 5 and then the two sight word sets we have, right? That's a lot of books.

She nodded determinedly and lost the bad attitude about the homework she'd been moping about for the twenty minutes since she'd gotten off the bus. Within ten minutes, we'd finished all her homework - a genuine miracle.

Forty minutes later, we'd finished Set 5. The Sight Words books were all that were left. We were both delighted to discover that those books were super easy, Mommy. This is just easy peasy book reading and not more advanced than the Set 5 we'd just finished. I'm not sure how, but we just finished the last of the sight words books (there were ten in each of the two sets) before it was time to eat dinner.

Mommy, I finished them. All of them. I can read now. Let's go to the library right now! she exclaimed excitedly, bouncing in every direction around me.

Sweat Pea, we need to eat dinner. If you finish you dinner and we have time before bedtime, I will take you. Otherwise, it will probably have to be this weekend, do you understand?

Shockingly, she sat down and ate her meal with gusto. She drank her milk with nary a complaint (and ohhh now that we're back to rice milk, do we hear complaints on a daily basis, although adding cinnamon to it helps). We trooped into the car and the six degree night with a windchill south of sanity.

Little Miss proudly signed her name to her very first library card last night. She promised to take good care of the books she borrowed with her own card and to be responsible for any fines she might incur - although I'm pretty sure she didn't know what that last phrase meant. It didn't matter. She'd agree to give away her Lotso bear if it meant getting a library card at that point.

Once she had the library card, she held it in front of her like a beacon, proudly announcing to everyone crossing our path that she was the proud owner of a brand, new library card that she got just tonight because I can read! It was pretty cute. She bounced up the stairs to the children's area where she accosted a librarian to determine what books she should bestow the honor of being the first books to come home with her very own, brand new library card.

Two minutes later, she'd selected two Biscuit books she was confident she could read with no assistance from me, and we were on our way. She checked out her books all on her own using our way cool self-checkout technology.

(Ignore the tongue sticking out thing. She fell in school today and bit her tongue hard to the point she was sent to the nurse because the teacher couldn't stop the bleeding. It's sensitive, still, so she's been sticking it out in a misguided effort to get it to heal faster.)

Once the books were officially hers, I reached over to pick up her library card to put it into my wallet. No dice. She swiped it from beneath my fingers before I could grasp it. Mommy, that's my card, not yours. It took a full five minutes of discussing with her before she'd finally turn it over. I actually had to show her where in my wallet I kept Mister Man's library card before she'd agree that I could hold onto it for her because that is my very own card now, Mommy. Because I can read, and I finished the Bob Books, and I got my own library card. I can use it to check out books, and it belongs to me.

Welcome a new reader to our family!

Oh, and while you're at it, I finally set up a Facebook Fan page for my blog. It's way overdue. Go like me on Facebook if you would so I can get an official username - once I get enough likes. You can also follow me on Twitter, too, if you're so inclined.

This Is Why I Need To Entertain More....

I appear to have a bit of a penchant for losing things. Generally, I find them again, but the time when they are ... misplaced is a challenge for me. I don't lose thing (all evidence to the contrary). I like being organized and knowing where things are.

Almost a month ago, I misplaced a book. I love to read, but I don't always have a ton of time to do so. My solution is to check out a book from the library and bring it with me everywhere. When I have a free moment waiting somewhere, I'll crack open the book.

That's what I did that Wednesday. That night when I went to look for the book to read before falling asleep, I couldn't find it. It wasn't in my car anywhere, and I do mean anywhere. I even checked under the car seats and booster seats.

Where had I been that day? 1) Little Miss's school to volunteer at the book fair. 2) Mister Man's school to pick him up for speech. 3) Speech therapy. 4) Mister Man's school to drop him off again. 5) Grocery stores. 6) Home. 7) Mister Man's school to pick him up. 8) Another grocery store. 9) Restaurant to pick up meals for teacher conferences. 10) Little Miss's school to drop off the meals for conferences. 11) Chiropractor. 12) Library. 13) Home again.

Good thing I didn't have too many places to look.

Since it was a library book, I figured I had a good chance of someone finding it and returning it, but that was not to happen - no matter how many times I checked my online account. I checked lost and founds at every location I could. I looked on the ground near where I'd parked everywhere. The book was just flat out gone.

It was due a week and a half ago, but I renewed it in the hopes that somehow some way I would still find the book. I'm an eternal optimist like that.

This past Friday, I hosted bunco at my house. Rather than the usual cleaning where things are organized but in piles and clean, I actually removed several of the piles. My house looked great. Ok, except for the basement stairs where I ran out of time and had to kind of pile a few things there. Shhhhh, no one needs to know about that though.

As I was trying to consolidate books I had bought the wee ones into a single bag (from Little Miss's book fair and other places), I noticed that there was a book in the Scholastic bag that didn't belong there. Any guesses what that book was?

On the plus side, I have since finished the book and returned it to the library.



PS The gift cards that a friend of mine bought almost a year ago from Mister Man's fundraiser that she kept forgetting to pay me for and I kept forgetting to bring to her? Well, she paid me, and I forgot to bring them to her again. Twice. Yesterday, I couldn't find them where I swore they were. Today? I'm finally tackling the organizing of the office, and phew I found them. They are now in my purse, so I can't forget them again, right?

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Stupid Electronic Systems

I went to the library the other day to pick up the fourth Twilight book. Finally, it was ready for me. Ok, I shouldn't say finally since I only put in my request for the first book ohhhh two weeks ago, but I get impatient when I'm waiting for a book.

I have a system at the library. The wee ones are only allowed to check out four books at a time. This makes it pretty easy for me to know where our books are that need to be returned and also to be sure that I don't accidentally forget to return one.

Now that Mister Man has his own library card, I've upped it from four total to four apiece. It's worked out fairly well so far. The library has a new system of electronic self checkout where you can look up info on your account as you check out.

My new system is to check out the new books, then look at how many books I have checked out. When I did this after checking out Breaking Dawn, I was mildly alarmed to see eight books checked out.

How do I have eight books checked out? Did I accidentally check out Mister Man's books on my library card? Fortunately, you can not only see the number of books checked out but -- if you pretend you're going to renew them -- you can also see the specific titles.

I skimmed through the titles quickly. Four books for Little Miss. Check. Breaking Dawn. Check. Love and Logic Book. Check. The Kings Man (a Sharon Kay Penman book I had gotten the last visit). Check. The Devil's Brood. Uhhh, what?

I looked more closely at it. The books were all due on May 26. Except The Devil's Brood. That one was due May 14. Uhhh, I only checked out books for myself one time. The Devil's Brood isn't my book!

How can I return a book I didn't ever check out? I began hyperventilating, imagining the fees the library would charge to replace the book. Stupid self-checkout. I must have somehow forgotten to click "Done" at the end of one of my sessions with the wee ones and someone had checked out a book on my account, obviously intending to steal it.

I hate people. What's wrong with them that they would do this? And how stupid was I to forget to click the button that ensured no one else could check out a book under my account. I so wish they were still using the system where the librarians checked out each person.

I stewed about this the whole way home. I woke up in the middle of the night freaking out about it. Yes, I know it's silly, but this is how I deal with things I've done "wrong."

This morning I finished The King's Man and started the next book in the pile. It took me about three chapters before I realized that I was reading The Devil's Brood.

Oh. Yeah. I remember now. I chose two Sharon Kay Penman novels when I checked out books. That way I had four books, too, just like the wee ones. Two novels of hers, the Love and Logic book, and Twilight.

Yeah.

I guess people aren't so bad after all.

Mister Man, Boy Detective

This hasn't quite been the spring break we planned this year. While I knew my husband would be at the high school with the baseball team three of our days off, I was still planning to do some fun things with the wee ones.

You know -- head up to a waterpark for a night or two with some friends, maybe teach Mister Man to ride his bike without the training wheels, lots of time outside making chalk drawings, definitely hanging out at the club playing in the pool, and maybe some time to get some good playdates in.

Yeah.

We've done none of those things. Between Mister Man breaking his arm the week before spring break and Little Miss being pretty sick since the first day of spring break, we haven't done one of those things.

Instead, we've spent a lot of time at home, nursing Little Miss and doing some quiet playing. That's right. We haven't even done the chalk drawing outside, which you would think would be easy.

Did I forget to mention the flooding rains and cold weather? Oh. Shame on me. We have snow in the forecast tomorrow, too.

This did afford me to do one special thing with Mister Man though. We went to the library, and he decided he wanted his very own library card. Who am I to stop him? So he now is the proud owner of a library card. That I keep in my wallet.



(And yes, that's a raincoat. Because of the massive rainstorms.) With his very first libary card, he couldn't decide what to check out. Partly, this was because he decided he wanted a libary card after we'd already checked out our books and were on the way to the car. He'd gotten two Thomas books for the sick Little Miss and chosen two for himself - the next Magic Treehouse book and another Roscoe Riley Rules book. (And he was very disappointed that Bad Kitty Gets a Bath was the first and so far only book in that series.)

That means I got to choose the book for him. I thought back to what it was like when I was young, the books I enjoyed. He's definitely reading more advanced books than I was at his age, but I finally decided on a series that I enjoyed as a child that I thought wouldn't be too old for him.



Yep, that would be Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective. Ten mysteries from the boy genius that make you think, too. And of course it has the requisite villain -- frequently Bugs Meaney.

When we got home, he sat down and read the first four stories without delay. I think we have a winner.

And another milestone is passed. My little baby is turning into quite the big boy here. And I'm so proud of him!