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4, 5, 6

 I had an awesome (and these days all too rare an) opportunity to read to a little toddler this weekend.  Along with smelling great and being adorable, he was quite the little reader.  He pointed out all the puppies and babies on all the pages and requested each book be read 3-4 times over.  It was a delightful experience and reminded me how my own kids went from touching the page (sometimes chewing) on the page, to trying to pry the characters right off of the pages to slowly slowly, step by hundreds and hundreds of miniature step, begin to follow along.

My daughter has always been very independent when it comes to reading and has disappointed quite a number of adults in her life when she insisted on taking over the reading duties from a young age--depriving us of snatching those little hair-smelling-kisses that come along with reading to a child.  (We still sneak them in).  Sitting on a lap and patiently listening to a story be read to her is just not that fun for her. My son on the other hand, associates reading with closeness and lately has really latched on to this fact.  He requests the stories mostly so he can force his parents to sit and be with him.  Personally, I am ambivalent, I loved being read to as a kid but now when someone reads something out loud out to me, I tune out.  I bleat, "can you just email that to me?"

How about you?  Do you like being read to or do you like to be the one doing the reading?

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