As an addendum to my Reader’s Notebook entry, a funny update on what C. is up to these days. My wee girl loves her some books! We’ve got books scattered all over the house, and one of her favorite tricks to to round them up and bring them to me, one-by-one. She’ll dig through them, looking for one that grabs her interest, then picks it up, and scurries my way, giggling and shrieking the entire way.
Sometimes, she just hands it off and returns for another, like a momma bird feeding her baby. Other times, she tries to climb up onto whatever I’m sitting on until I hoist her and set her next to me. Then, she cuddles into me and excitedly coos, “OOOH, OOOOH, OOOH!” as I open the book and prepare to read to her about baby animals or Chicka Chicka ABC or whatever. However, my absolute favorite moments are when she brings me a book, walks away, then turns around and runs at me with her hands up in the air, yelling happily. It’s like she can’t wait to read, but needs to burn off a little nervous energy so she can sit still during the story. When she runs around with her hands in the air, it reminds me of E.T. somehow. She’s a funny kid.
One other thing, I think it says a lot about how parenting techniques change from kid one to kid two that one of C.’s first 15 or 20 words is Dora. M. didn’t know who Dora was until well after her second birthday. C., on the other hand, starts stuttering “Doodoodoodoodoo,” anytime she sees a picture of Dora somewhere, be it on the cover of a book or on the toy shelves at Target. She then shakes her shoulders like she does when dancing to the Dora theme song each morning. M. has some Dora pajamas, and C. loves to dig them out of the closet and run around with them while yelling, “Doodoodoodoo!” Horrible parenting, indeed.