Today is my daughter's birthday. She is 23 years old. How time flies!
Soon after she walked at 10 months old, during a trip to Toys-r-Us, I realized she was a reader when she walked past all the dolls and toys towards the back station where the books were. She preferred books to toys.
It worried me a little that she didn't talk until she was 3 years old. However, when she finally started, she talked in full sentences. And around 4 years old, she started reading chapter books.
From early infancy, I read to her every night. Curious George Learns the Alphabet became her favorite book. Shortly after she started talking, she 'read' the entire book to me. A year later, at age 4, when she could really read, I stopped reading to her, she read books to me instead.
Even as young as 5, when I had to take her to work with me, she would stay at my office for 8 hours, just reading away. In an atmosphere full of noise she would quietly read and none of my coworkers knew she had been there all along.
It was a hard task for her to clean her room. Her books distracted her. I have seen her stop in the middle of putting her shoes or her clothes on, pick up a book and read away.
Sometimes, on very rare occasions, when she has irked me so, and I wanted to punish her or take things away, I have thought: maybe I should 'ground' her from reading. But of course, I couldn't and I didn't ever.
When she was 7 and she asked me about menstruation (her actual words), I realized I had to put our encyclopedia up the higher shelf where she couldn't reach. She was reading some inappropriate-for-her-age, albeit scientific and factual information I wasn't ready to discuss with her.
It worried me a little that she didn't talk until she was 3 years old. However, when she finally started, she talked in full sentences. And around 4 years old, she started reading chapter books.
From early infancy, I read to her every night. Curious George Learns the Alphabet became her favorite book. Shortly after she started talking, she 'read' the entire book to me. A year later, at age 4, when she could really read, I stopped reading to her, she read books to me instead.
Even as young as 5, when I had to take her to work with me, she would stay at my office for 8 hours, just reading away. In an atmosphere full of noise she would quietly read and none of my coworkers knew she had been there all along.
It was a hard task for her to clean her room. Her books distracted her. I have seen her stop in the middle of putting her shoes or her clothes on, pick up a book and read away.
Sometimes, on very rare occasions, when she has irked me so, and I wanted to punish her or take things away, I have thought: maybe I should 'ground' her from reading. But of course, I couldn't and I didn't ever.
When she was 7 and she asked me about menstruation (her actual words), I realized I had to put our encyclopedia up the higher shelf where she couldn't reach. She was reading some inappropriate-for-her-age, albeit scientific and factual information I wasn't ready to discuss with her.
She loves to read cookbooks and she reads them like she reads novels. She starts from page one and bookmarks where she stops.
She made me read the Harry Potter series, the Time Traveler's Wife, Middlesex, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, The Outsiders, I Capture the Castle, and so many more books on my list.
When I visit her now in Manhattan, we splurge on books at the Strand, her idea of heaven.
And of course, she made me join goodreads, and from there, this blog.
Happy Birthday to my daughter. I love her so. She makes me proud.
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