I love books. Always have.
When I was in elementary school and had
to clean my room, I would always start with my bookshelves. I'd
start by pulling every book off the shelves, dust the bookcase, and
the books and then methodically replace the books keeping the series
in number order and then focusing on height so that my books could
be best displayed and I could find the correct reread simply by
height and spine color.
Reading is still one of my passions,
and having the opportunity to pass on my joy in it to my students and
Peanut is an honor.
In order to expose my students to
engaging and quality literature I am a proud member of Scholastic
book clubs. Monthly, I send home flyers with students so that they
can fill their lives with books, and so my classroom can be filled
with new books for us to enjoy and learn from.
Remember
getting these flyers and circling books like crazy?
Well, it used to be for my students.
Now, it seems to be for my Peanut.
My September book order total was
$104.17. Fifty-eight dollars of that total were books I bought. My
classroom got 15 new books from that total. Peanut got 22.
Each day since my order came in, I've
been taking home one or two books each day. A few days ago I brought
home these two.
I had never read either book, but was
won over by the glowing reviews online and reasonable prices of the
discount flyer. While reading these to Leo after a delicious dinner
of pureed squash and rice cereal (him) and a PBB sandwich (me), I
sobbed. Yes, both books made me cry.
The book, Count Your Blessings,
is a 1-10 book where a baby bear counts the things he is grateful
for. One, he is thankful for his home. Then, BAM, out of an
illustrator's imagination comes a sucker punch. The little bear is
thankful for his parents.
Yes, Peanut has two parents. Yes, they
love him. Still, the picture above brought me to tears. I had a
beautiful and blessed childhood where my parents loved each other.
It was evident all of the time in our house. I realized when looking
at this page, Peanut won't have these images in his mind. Will he
ever have a picture with him and both of his parents? Perhaps not.
We didn't take one of the three of us
at the hospital when Peanut was born. I felt like doing so might
make me sick and thankfully no one mentioned it. How sad, though. On
this beautiful day that Peanut was born, his mother felt ill at the
thought of being near his father.
I've packed up the pictures of STBX and
myself, including our wedding photos in a box for Peanut someday. I
want him to know that there was a time when we loved one another and
that he is a product of love.
Yet, children's books that show happy
families all together make me sad. I wanted my baby to have that joy
of a mommy and daddy who love one another. Most of the time I know P
and I are better off without the tension of needing to tiptoe around
a scary temper, but sometimes I remember the good times and wish that
those good times could have been our family's everyday life.
The second book brought me to tears
too, but for an entirely different reason. Mommy Hugs is a counting
book about 10 different hugs mommy and baby share during the day. It
felt so sweet to read to Peanut about wake-up hugs,
going-down-the-slide hugs, and owie hugs.
This book looked like our family. Mama,
Peanut, and Wolfie. (The cat is like a cousin who visits occasionally
and demands to be fed.)
This family has love in abundance.
You should use your teacher/parent experience to write a post (or posts) about your favorite baby and children's books, or about how to pick good, age appropriate ones. I'm overwhelmed by all the choices!
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