another reader...

So as I mentioned before, the blog has been neglected.  Blame busy-ness with family, with photography, or we can even blame it on not knowing what to write.  Sometimes that's how it is.  I spend a lot of time reading blogs- blogs about family, blogs about photography, blogs about autism.  There are so many people writing so many things and writing them in a much better way than I can, with my hopeless grammatical errors and run-on sentences.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm just adding to the clutter that is the internet today and then I think about why I write and it's not really for the world but for my kids to someday see, for my family to understand us better, to be able to stay connected when we're spread out all over the place.  That's why I write and so here's another post that should have been done months ago...

We have another reader in the family.  The Sadie-girl has been reading for several months now and if I was a better mother, I would have the date that she first read me a story but I don't.  I'm horrible with dates and so we'll leave it at sometime within the past 6 months she started reading.  I'm pretty sure that her the first book she read was Mrs. Wishy-Washy.  It's a really cute story and she memorized it so quickly.  That was another part of the challenge in declaring her a reader.  She memorized things first and it wasn't until recently that she was really able to read without relying only on memorizing the story.

The little girl has been desperate to read since she was 2.  She would see big brother reading and wanted to do it so badly herself.  She would take her books and look at the pages, saying in the most pitiful, frustrated voice "I just can't read the words, Mommy.  I just can't do it."  and I would try to reassure her that brother couldn't read the words when he was 2 either.  As they each grew, she handled it well and brother was so nice, being willing to read to her most of the time.

We didn't push her to learn this.  We didn't really do anything with either of them except to do a lot of reading.  Seriously, A LOT of reading.  These kids could happily kill an entire afternoon sitting in their beds reading and re-reading books.  But then, their parents could also happily kill an entire afternoon laying in bed reading.  We're a family of readers.  That's what we do.  Case in point... this is how we spend our vacation at the beach, towels, umbrellas, beach chairs and plenty of books.

I'm thrilled that my kids love books.  I'm thrilled to watch Sadie going back through all of her old books and reading them to herself, rediscovering them for herself.  I can see that she feels empowered by it and I love that she feels that way.  Her favorite treat at Easter this year was getting her first chapter book.  Yep, we quickly jumped from beginning readers to chapter books.  It's still a little challenging to her but she has loved it and she has no problem making up a word if she gets stuck on one she doesn't know when she's reading.  At the library, she's been requesting the American Girl books.  She's been hoping for these (and for a doll) for about a year now.  We've said no doll until she can read the books.  Looks like this year might be the year for her first American Girl doll.  She seems to be leaning towards Kit but she's also enjoying the Felicity stories.  We'll have to wait and see what happens.

And so, here is a little video clip of Sadie reading Mrs. Wishy-washy for you all.  Enjoy!