I remember worrying when Magoo was a baby that we didn’t have enough traditions or rituals. And well, let’s just say that worry made sense because I worried about absolutely every little thing when she was baby. You know, as opposed to now.
Anyway, I would always think back to when I was a kid and the little rituals and traditions we had. I would remember trips to the library, and decorating the Christmas tree, and Sunday night roast beef dinner. My mind was filled with little traditions that added up to way more than the sum of their parts. And I just worried that we hadn’t created enough of them in our little family.
And I guess over the course of the last couple of years, I have started to realize that the reason we didn’t have all of these traditions is that for a tradition to feel, well, traditional, it required time. Now that we have had time to marinate as a family, I’m happy to see that we are coming up with some of our own traditions. I am excited to share some of our Halloween ones with you all over the next couple of weeks.
But the one that I wanted to talk about tonight is our reading ritual. We’ve always read a lot as a family. From the moment they are conceived, I start reading to my kiddos. It always happened just sporadically. We never did the traditional bedtime story. TJ puts the older two to bed, and he prefers to make up his own stories for them. We just read throughout the day, whenever we have a moment.
But Magoo is in kindergarten now (you know — the big leagues) and one of her assignments is to keep track of how much out loud reading we do together. Her teacher recommended 10+ minutes a day, but I’m proud to say we blew that out of the water last month with 670 minutes of silent and out loud reading!
Along side of that, we have come to a challenging time in our reading journey when for this first time since Goosie was an infant, her reading tastes and needs are much different from Magoo’s. As much as Goosie think she should be reading chapter books, no two year old (at least not mine) has the attention span or abilities to sit through one long book with very few chapters.
And from such began our tradition.
After dinner, Magoo and I head upstairs and we take turns reading from her books or from books of kid’s poetry or basically whatever catches our attention. Lately we have been working our way through the Junie B Jones and Junie B First Grader books which we both find hysterical. We’ll read for 15-30 minutes and then she heads downstairs and Goosie heads up.
Goosie’s favorite books are the Eric Carle books (Mixed Up Chameleon) and David Shannon books (Alice the Fairy and Duck on a Bike.) In fact, Goosie tried to “read” to me for the first time tonight. She chose Duck on a Bike and she did all the same voices as I did, and seemed to actually remember the story really well. She was quite proud of herself.
And that’s it. That has become our reading tradition, and if I try to change even the slightest bit of it, I pay the price. The girls are quite strict about how all this goes down, and there is absolutely, positively no room for pinch hitters. It’s mommy, and it’s snuggled under the covers in my bed or it’s all out tantrums.
Of course we still read at other times – before nap time, after we drop Magoo off at school, before dinner, at the doctor’s office etc, but this is our special reading time. I hope the girls remember it. I’m sure Magoo will at least have a passing memory. But for me, it will live in the place in my memory where only the precious moments go.
I pray that when my girls grow up and becomes moms of their own that they are able to create such traditions, and experience the love that flows so easily between a parent and a child when sharing a special story.