“Mom, come find me?”
The words I hear from my 4.5 year old as I wash the dishes in the kitchen. With a smirk on my face, I place my dish rag down and go on a child hunt. It is pretty easy to spot the little feet sticking out from under the curtains but I play the game and act as though I cannot find her. Delise, my 22 month old, has no trouble pointing out where her sister is hiding and the game is over. Annora comes out and, of course, wants to play again, again, and AGAIN! Trying to switch things up a bit, I excitedly recommend making a “fort!” Not the usual fort, but a “Mommy Table Fort!”
We get out ALL of the big blankets and start sliding the chairs out from under the dining room table. I must admit, our fort is IMPRESSIVE! We have height, space, pillows to sit on, dolls to entertain, etc. The fort is TOP NOTCH to any novice fort builder.
“What should we do?” Annora politely questions.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” I respond. “Whatever our little hearts desire!”
We come up with a list of things we could do in our fort. We discuss Noah’s Arc and getting all of her stuffed animals involved, a hospital for her Barbies, a girls’ only club, etc. Annora came up with so many ideas and I was there to agree and reinforce that whatever she wanted her fort to be, that was the perfect decision. Her choice….A LIBRARY! I couldn’t have been more pleased with her choice.
Walking over to the bookshelf, she chose her FAVORITE books and placed them in her fort. She sat down, “read” (or did a picture walk) each book with her sister of course and then proceeded to tell me about each of the books I could “check out” from her library. She retold each book she had and then told me why she thought I would enjoy it.
WOW…what a learning experience for ME! I was able to see her passion for books, her ability to recall and understand her favorite books, and she was able to give me a solid reason why I would enjoy that book. I was amazed at how much she had paid attention to all of the countless hours of reading and rereading books we had done. I am so glad I spent the time and still spend the time to sit down and read with her. She is a sponge at this small age and it excites me to see where her mind will take her next in one of her reading selections.
Our library in full swing!
1 Comment
Chrissy · June 28, 2016 at 5:28 am
Delaine was the only girl in the house aside from me so often she came to me crying saying the boys, her two brothers and inevitably 2 extra boys we usually had in the house, wouldn’t let her in the fort they made. I would go in and they would have a sign somewhere that said “NO GIRLS ALLOWED”. So we started building forts and of course we put a sign out that said “NO STINKY BOYS!”. I had some of the silliest or most relaxing times in those forts with my daughter. The boys eventually got a little jealous and changed their sign to say “NO GIRLS ALLOWED (except mom)” and I was able to have some great times with them too. Forts are awesome for keeping kids busy and for bonding!