Doing My Part to Promote Literacy

My son is two. Since before he was born, I’ve been reading brainy baby books, trying to figure out how I am going to instill a love of reading and learning in his darling little mind. From the day I brought him home from the hospital, I read and read to him. I made him look at books when his little attention span could be measured in microseconds. I dragged him to the library for Mother Goose storytime when all he wanted to do was run around and yank books off of the shelves yelling “Yah!!!” like a Backyardigan Viking. I strapped him in his high chair and made him turn pages, naming what he saw, for ten minutes at a time. I followed the advice of Moose A. Moose on Noggin who says , “Read with your child for 20 minutes a day and promote a lifetime love of reading.” Yet he couldn't be bothered. I despaired that I was a writer raising the little boy who hated books.

So, much to my delight and joy, the boy has finally turned the corner. Books have become his new favorite past time. We read and read and read all day long, over and over and over again. I can recite the lines of Dr. Suess’s “The Foot Book” and Sandra Boyton’s “Moo, Baa La La La” and “But Not the Hippopotamus,” just to name a couple. Yay, Mom! I should be thrilled…

But have you ever tried to read Dr. Suess twenty times before your child goes to bed, get that rhythm and rhyme into your head and then try to write a sex scene?

He likes to do it on a train
He likes to do it in the rain
He likes to do it in a boat
He likes to do it with a goat?

Oh no, it’s not pretty…

:)