Babby is really starting to enjoy books.
Around two months of age, he started becoming increasingly distracted by my own books, since one is invariably hovering over his head when he is breast feeding.
(Before you judge me, you have to understand. For me, reading is like breathing. I don’t “find time” to read for the same reason I don’t “find time” to inhale. Even when I was working full time, I managed to sneak in an hour or so of reading during the work day. Lunch was Readin’ Times. So nowadays breastfeeding has presented itself as the time to read (along with while I eat and before I sleep at night, and when I bathe and…). I mean, Babby’s on the breast constantly and there’s only so much staring deeply into his eyes that I can do. Plus he mostly stares at my armpit anyway.)
The black and white contrast of text on paper began drawing Babby’s gaze. By three months, he was clearly beginning to wonder “what is Booba-Lady staring at?” and so he would flip around to look. He began to reach out to the book, and gently run his hands along the page while I read it out loud to him.
When the Flight Attendant on our way home to BC after Christmas took Babby for a walk up the aisle, she returned him with “wow, he likes books, doesn’t he?” Apparently he had been goggling at another passenger’s open book.
“I think he likes the contrast,” I told her. I mean, I’m not so delusional as to think that my child is starting to be interested in reading. He just knows that there’s something fascinating to me about books, and he’s trying to figure out what that is.
Then he started trying to turn the pages the way I do, except his method was to grab a page and crumple it in his fist and then yank.
So I decided that it was time to hand him his own books. We now have story time before bed every night, where he cuddles in my lap and his Daddy reads Sandra Boynton to him while he reaches out to grab and attempt to turn the pages. He has varying success at this task.
I handed him a book one day to see if he would try to turn the pages on his own.
He did… for a minute.
If By Yes 