Our little bibliophile

Chase is a certified book worm. I think one of the reasons that he likes his new bed so much is because he now has free access to the bookshelf. When it's time for his nap, he'll spend at least 20-30 minutes after I leave devouring book after book. His routine is very predictable. As soon as I leave, he'll grab a book that is on the floor nearby and quietly flip through the pages. When he reaches the end, he says, "Next" and gets another. When he runs out of books that are close at hand, he'll get off the bed, go to the shelf, pick a book, bring it back to the bed, and begin his perusal. When that book is done, he repeats the process until he's piled so many books on his little nest that he now has to sleep in a very awkward position to avoid laying on one of the tomes. One day, I counted 16 books piled on his bed plus a few more that ended up on the floor. Here's a picture of the scene I discovered after one afternoon nap.


His love of books is so great that he even tries to read himself to sleep at night. He'll flip through the books in much the same fashion as he does at nap time with the main difference being it's completely dark in his room at night. I have no idea how much he can actually see when he's doing this, but he'll usually "read" for at least 10 minutes before calling it a night. Odd bird, my son.

Knowing this, you can imagine what fun we had at the library last week. His eyes lit up as soon as we entered the children's section. He headed straight for the shelf of enticing magazine covers and began flipping through them one by one. Next, came the shelves full of picture books. Having so many stories to choose from meant Monkey was in heaven. For mama it was a bit of a different story since I had to keep bending over to reshelve his cast offs. Bending over with a volleyball sized belly is not quite so easy. We probably looked at 50 books in the hour we were there. We came home with 7 books to enjoy--mostly books about trains, trucks, and airplanes. Noodle frequently turns to these precious books when he reads in his little red chair. I think this means that we'll be frequenting the library on a weekly basis.

He also loves to have you read the books to him. He'll bring you an endless stream of volumes to read. After you finish one, he'll say, "more" and bring you another. It can be exhausting even for a fellow book lover like myself. So, I have taken to recruiting outside help to feed the little one's addiction to print. You saw in the previous post that Nana has taken her turn reading to him. Now, here is a picture of Aunt Jenn sharing her literary services with the little guy. Be forewarned, if you enter my house, you too will be called forth to perform your duty as a book reader for the Noodlet.