Will wonders never cease?

I need to keep sharing these R. stories because this blog has kind of become my default family record so it is definitely a way to record milestones and track progress. And since for so many years progress was pretty non-existent, I am thrilled to have progress to share. 

So, are you ready? 

For the past two days, in the afternoon, R. has chosen to sit in front of the shelves of pictures books and look at books. Really look at them. This was something I had kind of written off as never going to happen, yet here we are.

Looking at books is something all my other children did voraciously. I would put the books back on the shelves and hours later they would be on the floor strewn about from having been looked at. Children looking at books was a constant and it was difficult to keep fresh books in front of them. Because it was just how life was, this life surrounded by books and that those books were being constantly "read", I never thought anything about it. I didn't know to appreciate my crew of book adoring children. 

R. has never really enjoyed books previous to this year. Yes, we would read them to her and she would engage a little bit, but once a parent closed the book, that was it. For oh so many reasons, books were not a part of her life. Being more than a little stubborn  not one to give up, I decided last year that me reading books to R. was going to be a huge part of her school time with me. We worked on how a child sits close to a parent when being read to, how to look at the pictures and follow along with the story, how to listen to the words. And that's what we have done all last year and into this one.

Last year I didn't discern any difference in R.'s interest in books. She sat with me to listen because I had asked her to, but there was no internal motivation to listening to the stories. This year, I got the sense that she was enjoying having books read to her a bit more than in the past. (We are still working on sitting close, though.) I even noticed her telling J. about a book that we had read together earlier in the day. I was happy with this amount of progress.

Yesterday, after I told her she could not play with the toy she had spent all morning with and needed to find something different, she sat down and looked at books. This surprised me and while I was thrilled, I figured it was a one time thing. Then today, when I was up in the loft weaving, instead of sitting and staring at me which is her normal, she moved over, sat on the beanbag chair, and started looking at books. I kept on eye on her while I was working because I sensed something different was happening. 

In the past when I've tried to suggest she look at books, she will do so, but she would grab a books, turn each page, close the book, and move onto the next one. She wasn't really looking at the books, just turning pages. Today, she was really looking at the pictures, studying them before turning a page. At least once she started telling me about what she happening in the pictures. Then at dinner, she told J. she was looked at a certain book and asked if he would read it to her at bedtime. 

I am blown away. I had resigned myself to R. never really being able to comprehend what was going on in a picture book, to never be able to appreciate and enjoy them in any meaningful way. Yet here we are. As I type this she has found the particular book she was interesting in and has brought it to J. for him to read it to her. J. has begun to read and she is interacting with him and the story.

This is one of those things that in a typical child it would go by completely unremarked. I know I didn't think anything of it when all my other children did this very ordinary thing. But for this child, it seems more than a little bit like a small miracle.