Book Learnin'

When I picked NJ up from day care today, her minder pointed out something The Wife and I had noticed at home -- the kid loves her some books. She spends a little more than half her play time with the other kids, I was told, and the rest of the time she likes to hang out on her own. And when she goes solo, it's almost always in the corner of the play room where the books are always strewn about -- "the library" -- and she thumbs through books and yammers as though she's reading out loud (I think she's talking about -- or to -- the illustrations).

NJ does the same at home. Her drum, blocks and 2.1 million other toys now take a back seat to her 1.5 million books. She's got many of the standards, like 'Where the Wild Things Are' and 'Goodnight Moon,' but also some other stuff, like a book with a story told in Magritte paintings (my favorite) and another one featuring Monet. (I can't be more specific at the moment because they're most all in her room right now, and she's asleep, and, to me, most of them blend together into a mishmash of talking animals and trains and mother-child discussions.) Most of the time she thumbs through them looking at every page, but occasionally she'll speed-read through book after book until a pile of them has been systematically moved from her left to her right. And nowadays, when The Wife or I (mostly her) read to NJ after bath time, she pays a lot more attention to the story and illustrations and spends less time looking around and pointing at the dog.

So, for now NJ's taken a scholarly path. I don't have the heart to tell her that books probably won't be around much longer.

I also read catalogs. Hey, um, Daddy -- can I borrow a credit card?