Reading

One of the things that I love to do is read to Dreamsicle. We have never had the typical read a book at bedtime routine though. We read all of the time except bedtime. Dreamsicle's books started out neatly placed on her bookshelf in her room. During the course of the day the books would seem to migrate on their own out to the living room, thus causing 10 minutes of the "clean up" song each night as we picked the books up and took them back into her room to be placed back on the bookshelf. After a year of doing that (yes, I am a slow learner) I finally decided that since we never read in her room, I needed to change the location of where the books were kept. They are now living in two rubbermaid containers in my living room. When I look at her collection of books, I am pretty proud of the variety that she has accumulated. She is graduating from simple board books to actual paper page books. We talk alot about how we love our books so we must always treat them gently. She gets it-she may throw around a kitty purse or two but never does she mishandle one of her books. It makes me so happy to hear her "read" to me or to her babies, she is doing very well.
Thus the reason for this post (see there really was a reason)-I have most of Dreamsicle's Christmas shopping done-still need to get the stocking stuffers and the Christmas Eve pajama's but other than that she is done. When I looked at the items I purchased for her, I spent just as much money on books for her as I did on toys. I am very pleased with myself over that.
So Christmas morning will be filled with ooh's and aah's as she opens up her laptop and digital camera but the time that I am anticipating the most is when she opens her books. That is the time when my teeny tiny big girl will curl up into my lap, snuggle in close and listen intently as her mama takes her to a land where her imagination will soar as I read to her.