Reading

To his mommy's and daddy's great joy, one of Connor's favorite things is to "read". One of the most predictable requests in our house from Connor is, "can you read me a book?"  We've read to him since he was a few weeks old--from 'Brown Bear' to 'Goodnight Moon' and now 'Thomas the Tank Engine' and R. Scarey's books. He loves them all. We're constantly amazed at his vocabulary and how he can pick up a book that we've not read in months and recite some of the sentences word for word. He gets so involved in the stories, he'll even skip over, what he calls, "scary parts" (which may be something as harmless as a thunderstorm or a nervous expression on a character's face).

We've started making regular trips to the library, which I must confess I had intended to do a long time ago but just haven't made a priority.  It's so cute when we go to the children's section of the library--Connor will pull books off the shelf and mull over the covers wondering whether or not he wants to check them out.  He'll say, "I think we need to bring this one home, Mommy." 

As a parent, and especially as a parent who did well and enjoyed school, I want to do everything possible to help him realize his potential in reading and other subjects.  One very controversial issue in our family was that Connor was not allowed to watch any television (including videos) until age 2--there was the occasional slip in the morning though (I am not a morning person anymore).   Richard did a much better job of holding firm to this rule--I would've caved long before age two if not for his insistance.  Looking back, I'm really glad that we resisted temptation--there were rare times when UNC basketball was on and, funly enough, the tv wasn't turned off (hmmm).

Now, at almost 3 years old, we've relaxed our rules for Connor to watch one or two cartoon in the morning after he wakes up and maybe watch a video (like curious george or veggie tales or elmo) after supper.  All in all, he averages about 1 hour a day.