My little bookworm

When I was pregnant with Taylor I was unable to make it back up north for any family baby showers. And instead of trying to put something together after she was born, I decided that rather than a traditional off-the-registry shower with the Amys family, we opted for a book shower, wherein all of Chris’s extended family chose their favorite children’s book, attached a picture and a personalized message in the front cover and mailed it to us. And what a good idea! Of course we got a few duplicates of some of the classics, but the number of books we were gifted was just amazing. And looking back, I am so happy I have all of these tailored, literary treasures instead of some cute outfit she would have outgrown in two months. And with the large number of our generous Amys relatives, our little princess was the proud owner of a virtual library before she was even born.

And even from an early age, Taylor has always been super-excited about her books. As a newborn, she would paw at the colorful illustrations and drool on the pages. Getting a bit more mature, she would let me read them to her while she batted at the pictures and squealed at the characters she recognized. And after we ditched the bottle at the end of last year, we replaced her nighttime feeding with before-bed books and snuggles. And recently she has become so enthusiastic about her books, helping me turn the pages and literally soaking up every bit of what I read to her. It’s amazing. If you hand her a book that she’s familiar with, she’ll sit down and read it out loud, purring little bits of the story that she’s memorized from when we’ve read it together. Like this morning when I spied on her in her room, sitting in her teeny-tiny armchair with Green Eggs and Ham open on her lap, waving her hands in the air saying, No, Sam, No! No eggs and ham! I mean, How precious is that?

And while I’m totally proud of my little reader, I’m not at all surprised by her love of books considering, as my sister puts it, “Bookwormishness runs in the family.” Not with ME so much, in that unless it’s between the covers of a People magazine or is written by David Sedaris, I’m less likely to break my neck to read it. But my Mom and my sister, however, are obsessive readers, with each one of them owning book collections that rival some local libraries. If you ever need a suggestion about what to read, ask either of them. If you ever need to know any recent celebrity gossip, however, I’m your gal.

So we’ve got ourselves a bookworm on our hands, and because we’ve come close to exhausting our own children’s book collection, I decided to take my little girl to the library a few days ago to check-out and bring home with us some new adventures. And after the Clifford-debacle last week, I made extra sure that this time we wouldn’t be interrupted by any giant red monsters, and that we would also be there at time that the facility would be fairly empty. And, seriously y’all, if you could have seen Taylor’s face when she realized that there were actual books on the shelves and that, Get this!, you can take them down and READ THEM. It was like letting Ruby loose in a bacon store, she didn’t know where to go first. And after pulling a few, glossy hardbacks down from their resting places, she made herself comfortable and started flipping through her new treasures.

Ah, my little peanut. Every day she makes my heart smile. Call me Obsessed, if you want. I just call myself proud.