Then and Now

My children have favorite times of day: lunch for one, then there's the magic hour when they're done with their work (which varies wildly among children), then there's the magic hour when Gavin comes home on the bus (finally) and Mark can play with him.

I have my favorite time of day: silent reading time. When I first instigated silent reading time, it was during Mark's afternoon nap. Braeden was a reluctant reader and read the same Garfield comic books over and over and over. I thought he'd likely get tired of them and move on to other books. He did. With a vengeance.

We have silent reading time right after lunch at least in theory. Sometimes, unless I'm creative, we don't have time for it at all.

Which to me, is an enormous tragedy.

Mark is always shooed away during silent reading time. Lately I've been logging him onto the computer. It's not a solution I love. I look forward to him being part of our group.

Last night at Costco, I found a collection of beginning reading stories. They came with an audio version of the books on CD.

I was transported back in time. I think for my 6th birthday, I got an Ugly Duckling book with a cassette tape of the story being read. I loved it! Back then entertainment on demand was much less accessible. I had no concept of television channels with children's programming (we didn't even get PBS) and VCRs hadn't been invented yet. My little book on tape was a big deal in my world.

We had a tape player similar to this:

Since we don't have a clunky tape recorder or cassette tapes, I loaded the stories on our ipod. Here's Mark today, joining in on silent reading time. (Ear buds keep the silent in silent reading time.)


It's a different set up than my Ugly Duckling days but I think just as magical. Mark liked being involved.

And I liked having him.