We've been reading Go Dog, Go! at bed time the last few nights. As most of you are aware it was my favorite childhood book and so it's been very gratifying to me to see how fond of it Evelyn has become.
Typically we'll read a bed-time book two or three times through before putting Evelyn in her crib. Sometimes she'll express a preference by asking "Mommy read it" or "Daddy read it;" often she likes to hear each of us read a given book in turn.
But last night she surprised us: "Evelyn read it!" And that's exactly what she did. I suppose "recite" is more accurate than "read" but she turned the pages and spoke the text out loud and it quickly became clear that she has a significant chunk of the book committed to memory.
I don't know how to express what we felt as we watched this unfolding. It was spooky and magical and exhilarating. We played it cool until we were out of the room and then we turned to each other and simultaneously mouthed Holy S...!
I wish I had had a video camera handy. I didn't, but I did have my trusty cell phone, so here are the pictures:
Book-time is one of the highlights of the day for us. Evelyn is usually in an upbeat mood after dinner and by the time we're done playing and singing songs and having her bath and getting the PJs on and the hair brushed we're all feeling pretty blissed out. I snuck a picture recently so you can get a little taste of our private together time:
There's a ton more to say; we're way behind on posting a news update and I have a half-finished post about Evelyn's artistic efforts which I'll try to wrap up soon. Meantime, all the best from us to you!
-- Mike
