2025)

March 2, 2025 / annamurray / Leave a comment

Well. It has been a while since I have memorised a book from reading it so much. Some that are in my repertoire are Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes; Time For Bed; Where Is the Green Sheep?; and This and That. The number of times S – who is currently fighting her worst ever cold – has asked, “How about we read Tiddler?”, or said “Read me Tiddler”, or “Let’s read Tiddler”, has resulted in me reading it any number of times, back to back, at all hours. It’s not quite entrenched in my brain just yet but I reckon by next Sunday it will be. It is becoming her comfort book, her go-to, her first choice for reassurance.

Books also saved us when I took S (with E as well) to the doctor on Friday. A midday appointment, that may or may not be running late, with one child who absolutely hates being at the doctor’s – I mean, chances are you’ll get stabbed (vaccinated), so I see her point – and was not very happy about being strapped into a stroller when she has recently gained a fair bit of freedom in that department, and another child who was being dragged along and not really enjoying being told to do anything like stay close and not climb on all the chairs because it’s not your own personal indoor gym. Dreading the experience, I felt like a magician when I said, “Let’s see if we have any books in here… Oh look, Hammerbarn!” And the mood switched from grizzly anxious to the calm familiarity of a well-known, well-loved book to hold and read and look at.

E has been fascinated by Letters From Felix this week, one of those perfect books for her age. A favourite toy, lost on holidays. Letters from all over the world. Actual letters that are a sheet of paper folded inside an envelope in the book. Lots of fine motor skill practice has happened this week, all in pursuit of letters and curiosity.

C was ecstatic on Tuesday this week, as she could borrow two of one of her favourite chapter book series from the school library. And then she read them both in about half an hour that night and then fell right asleep. The EJ Spy School series even inspired her birthday party last year. Then on Thursday, when homework came home, she was ecstatic again as her home reading book was an Ella and Olivia book. Usually she rolls her eyes at how simplistic the home readers are, but this week she read it without prompting more than once.

I have been making progress on Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé, with lots of downtime cuddles happening and no shopping or park plays or any outings whatsoever. I am so enjoying it, as I knew I would, but I am also feeling like I fell asleep in a show and woke up in the next series. I suspect some books in between Chocolat and Peaches will be in order soon.

As an aside, as today is Dr Seuss’ birthday, we had green eggs for breakfast. This sounds like more of a novelty than it really is, as Glenn makes “Baby Yoda eggs” (steamed eggs with spinach) on many weekends. But green eggs (scrambled eggs made with eggs whizzed with kale and avocado) was it for breakfast. C acknowledged what was up, but E and S were a bit more puzzled, even though I explained that it was Dr Seuss’ birthday and he wrote that book, Green Eggs and Ham… And even though we have quite a selection of Dr Seuss books, we don’t have THAT book, and the girls didn’t want to read any of his other books. To be fair, they were quite keen to watch anything they could that was based on a Dr Seuss book, but that was about it. Happy birthday, Dr Seuss.

What We Read This Week (23/02/2025)

February 23, 2025 / annamurray / Leave a comment

This was a week of magic and whisperings and tall tales and superheroes, of champions and quests and adventure and teamwork. And punctuation.

This was a week that C continued in her Geronimo and Thea Stilton obsession but also branched out to some Rescue Princesses and Magic books. A week that I am sure she read at least three of the Magic books (I’m not yet sure of their series name) but then thought she had lost Rainbow Magic and was devastated for all of Friday afternoon and evening and all of Saturday and thank goodness I found it somehow at the bottom of the pile of clean washing waiting to be sorted on Sunday. I’m quite sure this girl must dream of magical mice riding magical unicorns solving mysteries in the magical kingdom of Sparkles or something.

This was a week that I had to keep rereading the chapter I am up to in Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé because every time I read it I was interrupted by children needing me to do something or to jump on me or to cuddle me so fully that all I could do was surrender and hope I didn’t break an elbow or wrench a shoulder as I put the book away.

This was a week that E “borrowed” a book from C’s impressive stash and curled up on my sofa to “read” it. The intensity! This girl is so ready for Big School and learning how to read like a Big Kid.

This was a week that S asked me, often, to read her a story. It is finally clicking into a comfort thing for her. On Saturday I wasn’t well and my perceptive 2yo did what she always does and kept herself close to me, as if to keep checking on how I am, and eventually I asked if she wanted a story and she became my weighted blanket as I read her this week’s favourites: Tiddler, and Superworm. Or, to be more accurate, TIDDILER, and SOOperWUMMMMMM.

C read these two books independently. S asked for them most evenings. E asked for them most evenings, and when I read to her, she would recite along with me. The. Best.

Also up there with my Things That Make Me Smile is when my girls pick a book about punctuation as their bedtime story. The last 3 nights have seen E asking for the Pop-Up Punctuation book. Yes. It is a thing. My mum (a retired English teacher, unsurprisingly) gave the girls this book and it is fabulous. I love it. Showing where and why and how for all sorts of symbols, it is gentle and informative and funny. What a find.

What We Read This Week (16/02/25)

February 16, 2025 / annamurray / Leave a comment

What We Read This Week (16/2/25)

This whole “modelling reading real books yourself” thing is great. I sit on the sofa, have that aaahhhhhhhh moment that comes when you suddenly realise you have been standing and walking and pushing a pram and walking and standing for the last… four hours? Can that be right? Four hours, and you sit down and put your feet up, pick up your book in order to read just a little bit while children are otherwise engaged, and maybe three lines in (but already you are lost in the book), you hear a child’s voice high above you saying sweetly, “I need a cuggle” and as you look up, preparing to envelope them in your arms and enjoy the squishy solidity of a preschooler, there is a hefty child jumping onto you and landing with knees in your sternum. They laugh and bounce as you groan, then, like a magician pulling a rabbit, pull a book out of nowhere and say firmly, “Read me”.

“Read to you?”

“Read. A. MEEEEE”. Does a Face, this one with eyebrows up and pointed lips. It’s very subtle. It reminds you of a stern librarian. So you read her the story.

Who could resist? So Goodbye Baby Moon is read and reread and the moon is turned on and the book is reread and then she magically pulls out another book, this time from the table. You’ve seen it coming. You are partway through Bluey and Bingo’s I Love My Family when the child picks up another book. The Look. Eyeballing you as you start to read Tabby McTat. Doesn’t stop staring at you as you keep reading and she stalks her way across your lap, climbs onto the sofa arm and screams, “MAMMYYYYYY! HOLD. My. HANNNNNND” before launching herself onto the mini sofa which is, oddly, now parked at the perfect place for her to cannonball from my sofa arm onto the mini sofa while dodging the very solid walls of the hallway.

You return to reading your book, Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé by Joanne Harris. About one line in, children are fighting over who gets to jump onto the sofa next and you remember the sheets need to be changed and you realise that if afternoon tea is to make it to the park, then baking is necessarily imminent.

The next several pram outings have a book buddy, The Three Little pigs goes everywhere with you for days, and is read right way up and right way down. Your parents send Julia Donaldson books to E for her birthday and you hear the girls reading them to each other using voices and drama and your heart is happy.