Reading

As David transitions out of napping, we have a new rhythm--after lunch, we lie in my bed and read stories for about an hour, if not more.  It can be a little exhausting, but it works fairly well.  He is still a mess by suppertime on his non-napping days, but if he does nap, he doesn't go to bed until way too late.  We have been reading lots of Elsa Beskow--I have to admit, I am obsessed, and David is finally able to pay attention to longer and more complicated stories.  He particularly loves The Land of Long Ago--(I do too!) although I realized that what he really likes is the brief part where the knight cuts the evil dragon's head off.  It is really one sentence with no picture, but he really, really loves it.  It is something about his little heroic heart, I think.  (This is an almost completely screen-free child, by the way.)  Elsa cuddles on these days too, and listens to Sparkle Stories on the computer when he does.

Elsa and I got about three quarters of the way through Anne of Green Gables.  We stopped as Anne started to grow up, because at age five, Elsa is just not interested in romance and going off to college.  It was fun to read, although it did involve a lot of reading a few paragraphs and then paraphrasing them for her.  Right now we have lots of sweet drawings of girls with long red hair in fancy dresses with puffed sleeves.  The part where Anne longs for pretty dresses with puffed sleeves and Marilla refuses to make any for her, only making plain, "serviceable" dresses for her, really spoke to Elsa's girlish heart.  Not that Elsa does not have plenty of fancy clothes, (which she chooses to wear in very interesting way--the only thing I insist upon with her is that she wears weather appropriate clothes--this morning she put on her "old timey dress" with a pair of pajama bottoms, pink socks, and her big winter boots) but even the thought just touched her.  When Anne finally does get a fashionable dress, Elsa was so, so happy.

Now we are reading Strawberry Girl by Lois Lensky, for the second time.  It is so interesting--it is about backwoods Florida when it transitioned from being a free range cattle place to a farming state.  I had never really thought about Florida that way--I just think of it as what Tampa is, when I went there for swim training trips in college.  Elsa loves it, and is getting a lot from it. 

I have also been thinking a lot about telling stories.  My mother is the master of this, and can make up story after story for Elsa, and even for David.  I have trouble with this.  I have read some things about how story telling can be used as a discipline tool, and I think I try a little too hard.  "So once, there was a little bear and she wanted some honey but her mother told her she couldn't have any more, and she cried, and cried, and kicked and screamed...."  Umm, yeah, even they get this a little too much, and are totally not interested.  Hopefully, they will turn out okay anyway.