Read me a story

One of Erica's many diagnoses is cortical vision impairment. When she was an infant, I would hold all manner of black/white/red books and images up in front of her but she seemed not to see them and preferred to stare out the window at the light filtering through the trees. To this day she seems not to see her own image in a mirror. The day she watched a Baby Einstein video with interest felt like a miracle to me.

Being a good children's librarian, I longed for the day when she would say "read me a book, Mommy" and I waited and waited. Of course I read them to her without being asked. At first she just fell asleep, lulled by the warmth of my lap and sound of my voice. Then when she developed the dexterity to turn the pages (around age 3) she didn't want to let me finish each page before lunging to turn it. Then she got too big to hold on my lap (I couldn't see the book over the top of her head) but she had a hard time sitting up enough to see the pages when we sat side by side. So I took to lying next to her on her bed and holding the book up above our heads to read it. Boy does that tire out the arms!

We went through a long dry spell (over a year) when she never wanted me to read a story. And now, somehow, we have finally arrived in a place I cherish. I am fully cognizant of the fact that requesting a bedtime story every night is part stalling tactic and partly a way to keep me in the room with her so that I can't be paying attention to little sis Natalie. But the nightly routine now ends with me sitting in the chair in her room reading a story from a book that was my Dad's in childhood and was read to me also as a child. As I close the book and glance at her sleeping, I always think "finally! the words I waited so long to hear"

Mommy? Read... a... story?

You bet, kid! Thanks for asking!!