Sunday, November 06, 2011

Brooklyn Unveiled


(Photo taken through a kaleidoscope.)

Sometimes pictures say it all. This photo is just rich. The laundry in the background. The giant mound of toilet paper that Eli recently unrolled. And above all, Brooklyn in her most beloved spot.

Ever her father's daughter, Brooklyn has developed into a delightful bookworm. We simply can't keep enough reading material around the house. Brooklyn is intelligent, thoughtful, creative, resourceful--perhaps her biggest flaw is simply that she acts so mature that it is easy to forget she is still six. At times she seems so grown-up that it's easy to overlook how much she still needs our nurturing.

You see, although Brooklyn may read Pippi Longstocking all on her own, by the time she finally puts down the book and pulls up the undies from around her ankles, chances are that she'll need reminding to flush the toilet. In which case, I'll certainly encounter the eye roll, just as I undoubtedly will in six years when Brooklyn comes across this post as a 'Tween.

What can I say? That's what Mom's are for.

***By the way, if you have any good suggestions for youth reading materials, please chime in!

8 comments:

Erin said...

Anne of Green Gables
Caddie Woodlawn
Little House on the Prairie
The 3 Investigators
A Wrinkle in Time
Heidi
Chronicles of Narnia
A Little Princess

Depending on her interests, some of those may not hold her attention yet, but I loved all of them as a kid (and still do).

Crys said...

I'm not even going to tell you how many hours I've read in the bathroom...countless I'm sure. On the toilet, in the bath, while brushing teeth, in the shower. Ridiculous really :)

Julie L said...

The toilet is where I read. Pure and simple. War and Peace - all 1200+ pages of it - included. Great reading ideas Erin. She may still be a little young for all of them, but certainly they would be on my radar as her reading skills continue to escalate. And she's never too young to have you share reading them together - you read a paragraph, she reads a paragraph, for example. I'm betting she would devour all the books in Chronicles of Narnia. A couple other favorites of mine are "Holes" and "Ella Enchanted."

Unknown said...

Wow! Is all I can say! We like to read but apparently NOT that much!

Unknown said...

Wow! Is all I can say! We like to read but apparently NOT that much!

Anonymous said...

Brooklyn is merely participating in her own "occupy lower-level bathroom" movement(s)! (I've begun an "occupy La-Z-Boy" demonstration here in Occupy Omaha land. ... So far, only Zoe the pug has joined me.) I'm not sure what titles to recommend to a 6 year old protestor who is challenging corporate power and income inequality. She is way too young to read "Too Big to Fail," or "On the Brink" or "The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown." However, I do recommend that she (and all politicians) re-read and carefully think about "The Story of the Little Red Hen."

Anonymous said...

This post has retained a "most recent" status for awhile now. Its prominence invites another anonymous comment. So, it occurs to me the number of books red on the throne is strongly correlated to the number of bathrooms in the home as well as the number of family members sharing the bathroom(s). I'll leave it to those of you with advanced math skills to supply us the formula or algorithm. Until then, please note that I was raised in a home with one small bathroom shared by 11 people. We were trained from a young age to "take care of business quickly". Going with alacrity was particularly urged if my somewhat authoritarian father was in need of using the facility. Fortunately, we had a most primitive alternative located about 100 yards from the back door of our farm house. An old fashioned two hole privy named "Big John" was situated next to the potato cellar at the northeast corner of the barnyard. It was fully air-conditioned in the winter time, and at least one seat was almost always available. However, I remember reading only the ol' Sears and Roebuck Catalog in that emergency venue.

Marilee said...

Magic Tree House of Course
The American Girl Doll Books are quite good, and this led us to another great series that may be harder to find, the Dear America series. We love you and miss your family so much! You are a light to our lives!