We’ve had a busy few days around here… First, Katherine danced in her ballet recital. Caroline has been in two dance classes and recitals and I really thought I disliked the whole dance thing. Turns out I dislike being the mom of a little girl who is dancing but doesn’t like it. What I love […]

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As I read this month’s House Beautiful, I will admit that my eye was initially drawn to the large, round dining table. I love the idea of a round dining table, welcoming and inviting both quiet conversation with those next to you and ‘all play’ conversations with the whole group. But then my eyes drifted […]

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I have a friend who loves talking about reading with children as much as I do. She has voracious readers in her house and she comes to me often to report on books that her girls have loved and to brainstorm ideas for new titles to add to their shelves. And then sometimes, she sends […]

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I learned two things today. One… It is very hard to take a good picture of someone else’s feet. Two… Time is moving too quickly. The shoes above are mine. The feet are Caroline’s. My little baby wore my flip flops to school today. The feet that wore my flip flops today, once grew inside […]

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I try my hardest not to dance in front of others but today I have to admit to doing a happy dance at a book fair. The girls have their Spring book fair at school this week and I was thrilled with the selection. There were many, many books appropriate for early readers. These are […]

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I have a list of things that I will start doing someday. Someday when I have more time. You know the list. I’m pretty sure we all have one. Mine includes filling photo albums, eating more dark leafy greens and reading the newspaper. Fortunately, until that day comes, Rob helps me with one of my […]

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Sometimes people (and by people, I might mean myself) worry that their children are reading ‘below their level’. Why is she reading something so easy? Why is she re-reading? Why isn’t she challenging herself? Last week, I had gum surgery to repair my poor receding gums. For the past few days, I’ve been in a […]

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I needed a statistic this week for an article I am writing. I turned to a fascinating book, Creating Lifelong Readers Through Independent Reading, to find it and found the numbers I needed and more. I was searching for the decline in ‘reading for pleasure’ seen over the years. But don’t fear-the story I was writing […]

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It might have been a bedtime-delaying tactic. But I’ll take it. You see, Katherine and I just spent a good fifteen minutes playing a spontaneous alphabet game. We are in the middle of the latest in our favorite series, Gooney Bird on the Map. During our reading tonight, Gooney Bird and her classmates matched the first […]

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I was talking with a neighbor this morning about the amazing-ness of her two year old twins. Born at 32 weeks, each weighing under four pounds, they show no developmental signs of their early beginnings. When I asked my neighbor why she thought they were doing so remarkably well she said, “Well, we read to […]

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