The Sneaky Reader and the Hot Job

I have a night owl and an early bird. My sweet girl is a night owl like her parents. She'd stay up all night and sleep late the next day if she could. Falling asleep has always been a bit of a challenge for her. Perhaps that's why she loves to read in bed at night. And she often sneaks in a bit of reading—okay, a LOT of reading—after we've given the lights out. So much so, in fact, that I've on occasion discovered her still reading past midnight and had to take her glasses away till morning just so she'd actually get some sleep.

What's most fascinating about her is that if we don't catch her reading exploits, she most always feels the need to confess them. I will often see her padding down the hall toward me well after bedtime, hair mussed from lying on her pillow, a guilty look on her face. Or the next morning after finally dragging herself from slumber, she'll level a serious gaze at me. "Mommy, I read a little bit last night."

Currently, she's working on The Chronicles of Narnia. There are so many worse things she could do than sneak in a bit of C. S. Lewis after bedtime.

Being a night owl, she loves to sleep in next day. She got this honest. And as she's nine now and nearing puberty, I've discovered that she needs to sleep a bit extra. That's a luxury of homeschooling. The day's work waits for them, not the other way around.

Her little brother is a different story. On designated reading nights, I'll often step into their room to tell them it's time to put their books down and go to sleep, only to find him already passed out on his bed, his book shipwrecked at his side.

He's an early bird. In fact, he's the only honest early bird in the family. Some wouldn't consider him very early (approximately 8am), but being a night owl, I do. If they get in bed early enough, most nights we let them have a bit of reading time before lights out.

He's my happy, chatty, sweet and smiley alarm clock.

Two mornings ago he sneaked into my room and crawled into my bed immediately upon wakening, as is his custom, and announced, as is not his custom, "Mommy, I want to be your huggy pillow."

Awesome! I moved the pillow and hugged him close instead. Five seconds later...

"A huggy pillow's job sure is a hot job."

So Happy, It Made Me Cry

I read chapter books to my children, a chapter each night at bedtime. We recently finished A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The kids enjoyed the story so much that I let them watch two movie adaptations. First, the ancient Shirley Temple version, then we watched the 1997 version.

I confess, I almost always cry at happy endings, even those I've seen or read in the past. Toward the very end of the 1997 version, Sarah is reunited with her father (unlike in the novel, where he dies), and my five-year-old son was so moved by the reunion scene that he started blinking, then hid his eyes. I walked over to him, and he said, "Mommy, it made me so happy, it made me cry."

Such a precious moment. I took him on my lap, and we cried together.

When Literature Comes to Life

Yesterday I wrote about our discovery of the ducklings at the park, and how excited my kids were to see what we had read about in The Trumpet of the Swan, by E. B. White.
Well, it gets better.
The same day we went to the park and saw the ducks, we went to Costco. That's really not such a big deal, I know, but my kids are hooked on the free samples, so they were excited. But the real excitement that day wasn't in the store, but in the parking lot. When we drove toward the Costco entrance, we spotted this:

Yes, that is a Canada Goose nesting on an "island" in the parking lot. There is a run-off pond below the Costco parking lot, and several geese have made this location their summer home.
Her mate stood protectively nearby. He hissed at us quite a bit when we stopped our van and took a better look at them. The children were beside themselves with delight at getting to see a goose, the closest thing we have in our area to a swan, nesting just like in our chapter book.
We made a point to drive by and see her several more times. Just a few days ago, we drove by and the nest was abandoned. I got out of the van and took a closer look, and several egg shells were there, but no whole eggs. Apparently, the goslings had hatched.
So we drove to a parking lot that bordered the run-off pond and found the goose family at the water's edge. The geese were alarmed to see humans coming toward them, and they hurried their goslings into the water where they'd be safe from the perceived threat.

The children counted eight goslings altogether.
On our way back to the car, we were confronted by a large goose. He spread his wings and drew close. The children stood behind me, and I extended my arms in what I figured was a similar gesture to his. He closed his wings, eyed me, and backed up. I guess I was a bigger bird than him.
It's amazing what a child can learn about our world through reading. Have you read to your child today?

A Bestest Day

I love it when real life and literature intersect. And they did beautifully last week.
I believe I've mentioned before that I'm currently reading The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White to my children. We had just read about the mother swan building a nest, sitting on the eggs for 35 days, and the cygnets (baby swans) hatching out. The next day when we were leaving a play date at a local park, a beautiful opportunity presented itself in which I could bring that book to life for my children. We passed a pond, and I spotted some ducklings following their mother across the street. I pulled over, got the kids out of the car, and we went for a nature walk.
A couple geese plucked grass next to the pond. When we approached, one postured and flapped his wings to look intimidating toward us, much as the cob (the father swan) did in the chapter book to ward off intruders.

Turtles sunned on a log in the water, and my children quickly learned what it means to be quiet when observing wildlife when the turtles vanished into the water at the sounds of their voices. It took several patient minutes of silent waiting for them to re-emerge for us to get this shot.

And we found the ducklings.

My children were delighted, their little voices shrill with excitement as they watched the little ducks swim in the water, then climb ashore at their mother's summons and huddle together to enjoy the mid-April sunshine.
As we headed home, my daughter declared it one of the bestest days ever. Yes, sweetheart, it certainly was.