Like Mother Like Daughter

I love to read. In fact, that is a bit of an understatement. My husband says that, if I were reading when the house caught on fire, I wouldn't notice until my book started to smolder.

When I was a kid, I used to stay up until all hours reading books. I was a huge night owl and a horrible morning person. I would lie in my bed with my reading lamp on and listen for Dad's footsteps coming down the hallway. Our house was pretty creaky so, unless he was trying to be quiet about walking, I would almost certainly hear him. Everytime I heard a creak I would rapidly switch the light off, hide the book on my chest under my blanket and pretend to be asleep while my heart pounded loudly in my ears. I had many a false alarm that gave me adrenaline rushes to put parachute jumpers to shame. The few times that Dad caught me, when I didn't hear the creak or was to involved in my book to notice, all he had to do was look at me for the shame of disobeying to cripple me inside. Dad never had to yell, he just looked at me in disappointment and I was crushed. I would apologize, put the book away, and turn out the light. It must not have crushed me too much because, unfortunately, probably 50% of the time, 5 minutes after he walked down the hall my book would come out and the light would go back on, almost of it's own accord. So great is my love of reading and my need, for it is definitely a need, to find out what happens next. I never understood that the characters would still be in their same troubled state the next day if I did not read on. As if they would somehow continue on with the story without me.

The last few months Katie has begun exhibiting symptoms of this disease, and she can't even read yet! After being put to bed, she gets up and brings a few books from her bookshelf over to the bed and "reads" by the light of the night light. When that isn't enough after a few minutes, she goes over to the room light switch (which, being tall, she has been able to reach since she could walk), turns it on and returns to her bed with more books in hand. She stays in bed, as requested by her parents, and we watch her on the video monitor laying on her stomach flipping through book after book until one of us goes upstairs, tells her to turn the light on and put the books away because it is "night night time".

More than almost anything, I wanted to foster in my children the same love of reading that makes me have to stay up to read "one more chapter...". When Katie would not sit down with me, even to look at pictures, much less read a story, until she was almost 18 months old, I was concerned that I would force the issue, making her dislike reading, or that she simply wouldn't be interested. Now she tries negotiating her bedtime with a hopeful "How 'bout one more?" in her cute voice. Obviously, I needn't have worried about Katie.