The Reader (the G-rated version)
[Sidebar: when I ran into Digger, now an analyst on ESPN, at the Orlando airport a couple of years ago, I told him how I had met him the first time, and he said, "Wow, that was a very long time ago. Now I feel old," and walked away very quickly.]
Mix toddler picture books with a husband with Smart Alec tendencies, and you have great nighttime entertainment.
Anyway, you get the point. I read a lot. My husband, on the other hand, reads World Oil and the Wall Street Journal and spreadsheets ad nauseum. He does not ever read fiction and doesn't get it when I read to him a funny or poignant paragraph from a book. I shake with laughter at Janet Evanovich’s books and when I try to relay the story, he gives me a look and goes back to his spreadsheets.
He does walk into the library every week to pick up books I've ordered, so maybe he gets a little culture via direct contact.
When it comes to reading to our son at bedtime, however, my husband is the champion. Will reads the first book or two of the night, after bath time, and then I take over with more books before it's time for our son to go to sleep. I used to leave the two of them alone to read and caught up on work in the other room, or folded the laundry. Recently, I was putting away the clothes in our son's room and overheard part of the storytelling... and realized what I was missing.
See, my book-reading style is pretty straightforward. Read the book as written, add some inflection and funny voices, and keep it calm near bedtime. I read slowly so that he can understand the words I’m saying, and I ask him to finish the sentences with books he knows well. I may have thoughts about the material I’m reading, but I generally keep them to myself, letting my mind often wander on tangents from a thread from a few words from the book at hand. My husband, on the other hand, has a creative streak I never knew he had… but the sarcastic wit I know all too well.
First of all, he always makes a point to read the title of the book, but also the author AND published. Every time our son says “Scholastic Incorporated” in his toddler voice, I have to laugh. Secondly, dear Husband does not exactly – er – follow the script. To wit:
The Gingerbread Man
"'Once upon a time there was an old man and an old woman and a little boy.' And how the little boy ended up with an old man and an old woman is another episode of Jerry Springer."
"'Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man.' This gingerbread man is a taunting little twerp, isn't he?" [T looks up at him and nods somberly.]
"And that was the end of the gingerbread man. So the lesson here is that foxes like gingerbread men... they're tasty."
Clifford
"She's combing Clifford's hair with a rake; apparently that little minx is not worried about hurting him in the least bit." [T looks concerned]
"Clifford didn't win the dog show. That goofy-looking poodle thing did."
“This dream of Emily Elizabeth’s is starting to sound like an acid trip.”
Quiero a mi Mama Porque (I love my mommy because…)
"What animal is this? Right, it's a cow. And what do you call a baby cow? Good job... a calf! How about this one? An alligator, right! Baby alligators are called appetizers." [T makes a quizzical face. "What's app-a-tye-zer?"]
"'I love my mama because she's not afraid of the dark.' There's a serious fabrication in that statement."
Scat Cat
“...and there’s nothing better than a book about a cat.” (In sarcastic tone.)
After he realized that I have been laughing at his
antics, my husband started taking great pleasure in emphasizing how OLD the
mother is at the end of the book Love you
Forever. He knows I hate that part.
I’m sure he has something to say about other
classics like Where the Wild Things Are (possible theme: kids out of control),
Alice in Wonderland (reflections on the kinds of drugs the author was using at
the time) or Little Red Riding Hood (the folly of trusting hairy strangers). Don’t
get me started on his comparisons of some of the old books about a certain
train and its friends to unions and collective bargaining.
But what my husband doesn't know is that his time
as the "color guy" to my straight reading is almost up; our son is
turning three and our little parrot is repeating everything we say. And the last thing I need his
grandparents to hear is that the Gingerbread Man lives with Jerry Springer.