What We're Reading Now

Mary Bullock is a girl with opinions.

She gets this from her father.
Not that I don't have opinions--I do. It's just that [maybe because I was a youngest child and my household sway was minimal] I'm just as likely to say ok to whatever anyone else feels strongly about.
Law & Order marathon for the seventeen bajillionth night in a row? Ok. [Just for instance.]

But whether its a genetic inclination or a first child phenomenon, she cares about all sorts of things, including her books. The ones she's loving now are a mix of pleasure and pain for me, the reader, but I'm slowly gathering that pleasure and pain are going to be the running theme of her coming third year of life.

Pleasure:

It rhymes. It has cute animal pictures. And it glorifies my role in my baby's life.

It also provides MB the opportunity to say super cute stuff-- like uppy duppies!! for whoopsy daisy. I like it when she says super cute stuff.  Kind of makes the whining more bearable, if you know what I mean.

Then there's pleasure and pain in combination:

I actually love this book. The only part that gives me pain is the glimpse into my future seen here:

Dear Lord, please don't let MB ever decide she'll wear nothing but a polka dot blankie. This is not a battle I can win, and there's not enough wine in this world to make up for it. Amen.

And then, of course, there's purely pain:

Yes--this is a Where's Waldo kids' meal book from Wendy's. If we're being honest, she requests this book about as much as anything else on her bookshelf. She's not too bad at it, either. But this book sends her normally kind of cute Uh-DAT???? questions into another stratosphere.  One page, for example, has about forty dinosaurs on it. And she must know what each and every one of them is before the page is turned.

As much as I dislike Where's Waldo, reading with MB is high on my list of Birthday Things, and I know one day, years and years from now, when she's too old to snuggle up with before bedtime, I'll miss even this.