31 for 21, Day 8: books, books, books

in the last few weeks i have discovered that maya has developed a liking to books. at first she mostly enjoyed grabbing the books from the shelf and throwing them all over the place. very often i would find her in her room surrounded by a pile of books. it was very cute to watch.

but now she is more and more interested in flipping the pages of the book. she does this over and over to certain ones. she has her favorites i think. i give most credit to her respite providers. they have been reading to her every time they meet. i'm awful about that, except when we are on the potty (we have a book about the potty to read as she sits there) and of course her dada reads to her at bedtime. this last week she started to sign "book" every time we sat on the potty. most of the time we read it three times back to back and when i put it away, she often gets mad at me.

she really enjoys sitting on someones lap as they read to her, so i get some cuddle time out of it also. there is something to flipping the pages back and forth, feeling textures and the peekaboo books. today i read/sang to her from the wheels on the bus book. i think she really likes that one because it combines two of her favorite things, books/pictures and music.

i'm really hoping we are able to keep this up. i wasn't a big reader when i was young. i didn't go to the library all that much until i was driving my own car. and even that was for school research. i didn't read much for leisure and i hate to admit i often used cliff notes to write my papers. i'm hoping that i can instill something different in maya. it would be so cool if she enjoyed reading. i can see that it would open up a whole new world to her. and just like everything else, when it comes to maya, i would also benefit from it. ;)