Thursday, May 19, 2005

busy week

Somehow it has escaped my notice until now that Nick, who is seven, is becoming a different person, right before my very eyes. Last week he learned to ride his bike. Really ride it, without training wheels and all. He couldn't, and then, the next day, he could.

He's taken a few big spills, too. Big scrape on the elbow, and, scariest of all, he looks like he got almost garrotted by a chain he rode into instead of under. But --though he's normally a pretty big whiner about stuff like this-- he's stoic.

Actually last week I brought him his skateboard to school on afternoon so he could ride it home, and he took a pretty big spill on the way. He got up and brushed himself off, and I said, "you ok? That was a pretty big spill." He said, "I'm ok. If you want to ride a skateboard, you have to be willing to fall sometimes."

Well, OK, then.

Last week he also decided he loved the Harry Potter books. I began reading him the first one on Thursday night. We finished chapter one together, as we had done almost a year ago before he decided that it might be too scary and we should stop. This time, he took the book and read it by flashlight for a while that night, then simply lived inside the book until, Saturday, he finished it. He's now finished the second one, and can't be torn from the third.

So he's a reading, biking, kind of a guy.

The sad thing about the reading (I know, there's not supposed to be a sad thing about the reading) is that he really won't let me read to him right now. He's just too determined to get through these books on his own. And that's fine, but I wasn't really ready to let go of the bed-time reading. Maybe we could just start--oh, I don't know-- The Hobbit?

3 comments:

kate said...

I remember the nightly ritual of lying on the couch with my dad, long after I could read to myself, while he read to me. He did read "The Hobbit" (and I was probably Nick's age) and then the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy. He later told me that he had skipped over bits of it at times, but mostly read it all. He would stop occasionally and quiz me to be sure I was paying attention, and there were times that I sort of zoned out to the cadences of his voice, but it's still a fond memory. Before Tolkien we read the entire Wizard of Oz series, and I'm sure there was other stuff, too.

So maybe Nick will still let you read to him if it's a book he probably couldn't get through on his own.

It sounds like he's really coming into his own-- I love the skateboarding comment!

Libby said...

My dad read the whole LOTR series, too, starting with The Hobbit the night we left for Tokyo, a week before I turned five. I remember almost nothing of the actual reading, but I do remember that he did it. I think I read the whole series to Mariah, too, but Nick just wasn't interested last time we tried. So we began Mary Poppins the other night, weirdly enough. We'll see how far that takes us (we do have the whole series...)

Wormwood's Doxy said...

Elisabeth---I'm just now catching up with your blog, but wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed this. My own son (who will be 9 next month) discovered Harry Potter in 2nd grade and has read like a fiend ever since. I could kiss J.K. Rowling's feet for that.

But he still likes me to read to him. It has been difficult the last few years, because my daughter is so much younger and hasn't been interested in the same books. But lately she has shown a willingness to sit still and listen, so now I can read to both of them. We are working our way through Ella Enchanted right now and they both love it.

He still hasn't learned to ride a bike though....