Saturday, January 16, 2010

New Decade's Resolution

I was just looking through old issues of Mothering trying to find an article for a pregnant friend. I found this piece written by the mom of a 20-year-old. When her daughter was 8, they formed a book club with several other mom/daughter combos. They met regularly and even went on related field trips over the years. The girls and moms still meet on summer breaks from college and cooked food related to the books they read.

I am just putting this out into the universe as something I want to do with my daughter. She and I often struggle to connect with one another. One way we have been doing so lately has been reading books in the evening. Even if she only stays up 20 minutes past her little brother, it is an amazing 20 minutes of my attention and snuggles on the couch. We have always read to her (and I do mean ALWAYS... even when she just wanted to chew on pages) but now we are into the world of chapter books and it is a whole new world. She is reading a bit too on her own but she really has the ability to focus more on books without pictures. We read a few of the Doll People books and are now onto the Ramona series! I loved those books as a kid and they are even funnier to me as a grown-up-- funny and poignant. Several evenings, Ramona and Beezus have given us a new way of looking at our own family's problems. It has been great for Luna to hear Ramona (the youngest) complain that her parents only love her older sister and NEVER give Ramona any attention! Ha!

Can someone out there remind me to organize this fabulous reinvention of book clubs in 3 years or so? Thanks.

1 comment:

habibimama said...

rock on mama - always inspiring to read your writing!