Each night I add to a gratitude list I started on January 1. It’s one of the ways I like to remind myself about the things for which I have to be thankful and last night was no different. At the top of last night’s entries? I wrote how much I loved and how grateful I was that our family of four was all in the same living room area each doing something they loved—reading, website design, drawing. I have enjoyed similar moments this week wherein all four of us were reading a favored story or book, and last night I made sure to make note of it because it truly brings me joy.
Ever since our girls were itty bitty, we have read aloud to them. In fact, when they were quite young, my husband had memorized at least two, if not three, of our oldest girl’s favorite stories (at least two Frog & Toad stories, one being The Button, and an early reader, Tubby and the Lantern). At around this same time we began our family trips to the library, and library day became a favorite day. We were that family who left the library with the maximum number of books the library allowed us to check out, which I believe was 50 and some of my favorite photos from those early days were our girls lying on the carpeted floor surrounded by an array of library books.
Library day is still my favorite even with my teens. I love that my girls love to read. I love that my girls have read stories that speak to their hearts and their souls. I love that my girls have books or stories they enjoy so much they will read them again and again. I love that my youngest teen has what she refers to as comfort books (books that help her when she feels anxious and where she feels seen and heard because a character experiences life in a way similar to the way my girl experiences life). And I love that even when a book disappoints my oldest, she will still find a book and check it out and give it a chance.
Trips to the library can sometimes be as much about the drive to get there for one or both girls on any given trip; but there is still an adventure awaiting them in the stacks of the library itself. While the older teen can be disappointed in the fiction options she chooses, she has discovered some fantastic books related to art, dragons and other mythological creatures, Norse mythology, and Dungeons & Dragons.
Whatever their motivation on any given trip to the library, it doesn’t override that there are days when our family cozies down in the living room area with a favorite book, be it a graphic novel for the 14 year old or a 1980s Classic Rock anthology-biography (Nothin’ But a Good Time, in case you’re curious) or a science fiction novel set in outer space. And the conversation books inspire among us is equally fun and fantastic. I learn as much from these two young women about space, dragons, mythology, life’s complications and subtleties, and relationships as I do from any other place. But it’s the connection we experience through the stories we read, share, and talk about that helps us maintain a strong relationship foundation. And that is something for which I will be grateful every day.