Reading Rainbow Summer

I have such lofty goals the first week of summer.  There's a long list of updates to the inside and outside of the house.  There's the yard work we put off all spring waiting for our vacation.  There's the cleaning we do only once a year.  Then there's the plans I make for entertaining my children and sculpting them into academic, polite, contributing members of society.  

All of this was put on hold for the first week of vacation.  We decided just to get into our pajamas and veg all week.  Who wants to work on the first week of vacation?  Not us.

By the time we got to week two, we were all set to begin bettering our house, lives, and children.  I decided we'd go to the library once a week with the kids.  And we wouldn't just drive to the library...no, we were going to walk to the library.  Exercise for our bodies and mind.  

Ready to rock this town like it's never been rocked before.

So we began our ritual of walking (sometimes driving when we were just too busy vacationing to have time to walk) to the library once a week.  The first week we went, we discovered the summer reading program.  They already had a milk crate out in the children's wing with names of local children who were about to embark on this reading adventure.  

Wait.  It was sitting out for everyone to see and look through?  I'll just take a little peek-see into the crate to see who is already signed up.  Whoa?!  Little Suzy from down the street is doing this?  Little Davy, too?  They're Ainsley's age!  I better sign this girl up quick so A) other spying parents see her name and B) she doesn't get left in the dust by these other over-achieving two-year-olds.

What?  There are books here?

She was signed up immediately.  We had one month to read 50 books.  This wasn't going to be difficult.  We read a good five books a day in our house, so 50 in a month?  Seriously.  Challenge us, Wiskson.  Puh-lease.  

We checked out six books that very day, went home, and read them all before nightfall.  Watch out, Suzy and Davy.  We got you! 

Let me back up a smidge.  "We checked out six books that very day" makes it seem like the process went smoothly with Ainsley on board for this venture.  It wasn't that easy at the library.  She was entirely disinterested in any books in the place.  The children's wing is filled with toys.  She thinks that libraries are like toy stores.  They happen to contain books that she completely ignores.  She refused to participate in the choosing of any of these books.  She threw a tantrum every time we left the library all summer.  There wasn't a time we left without tears.  Tears for the hours of fun she lost because of her evil Mom and Dad taking her away from the library toys.  Oy.  Promises of McDonald's Playplace and chicken nuggets in exchange for proper behavior when leaving didn't work.  Ever.  Oy.  Oy.  

She had no idea what this was about, but insisted upon playing with it.

We kept up with the program and visited the library every week.  I didn't want to brag about my child's reading, so I would only count the books she read that were checked out from the library, instead of any books we read that we owned.  Because of this, it did take us all month to finish the 50 book minimum.  

Her favorite three books all summer were :

Princess Baby by Karen Katz

I Will Never Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child

This book was especially popular because of the skunk lurking in our neighbor's yard for nearly a week.

Skunkdog by Emily Jenkins.

By the end of the month, we had read 50 books.  Ainsley won little prizes like bubbles and finger puppets.  In the end, she won a gift certificate to play putt-putt golf at the Bavarian Inn Lodge.  (A WHOLE nother story about trying to teach a two-year old to play putt-putt.  Note to Wickson:  the two year old age group should have a much different final prize.)  

Her name on the wall when she finished. 

There were other events all summer, including magicians, movies, and crafts, but Ainsley ONLY wanted to play with the library's toys.  Maybe next summer!