Today Was The Day...

...Esperanza finally, FINALLY, finally, discovered that she enjoys being read to from books without bright colorful pictures on pages.

We frequent the library several times a week, and she always chooses books based on their cover. It has to be pink or purple, and it must include pictures of princesses, faeries, unicorns or mermaids. Most recently, she loves Barbie movies and books (Barbie was introduced to her by her dad - he can take 100% credit for this. He's even bought her brand new, in the box Barbie's! Who does that?!). Now, she wants a Princess/Popstar Barbie themed birthday party when she turns 5 in just a few months! I am painfully aware that when she knows I don't want her to like something, she just likes it that much more. So, I'm leaving this one alone and will pretend for awhile that I don't care.

Back to today.

Leaving the library, I always have an armful of children's books I want to read to her. She has her own lot of her choosing. Often, I choose childrens classics. Other times, I go by the cover too, a recommendation or review. Sadly, my chosen books always get returned to the library unread by us (aside from the books I choose for Ezra - he loves all books). Esperanza has zero interest in me reading to her, unless it's a book with a frilly cover and/or a story that ends with a prince rescuing an otherwise poor, helpless and lonely girl.

Today we made a break through!

She saw a tiny black and white sketch of a little rabbit and horse on a page in a book we have of short stories and she asked what it was. The Velveteen Rabbit. She asked me to read it. I read the entire story (so what if it was a condensed version and only a few pages) with her complete attention. She asked me to keep reading. I read The Ugly Duckling, Johnny Appleseed, Snow White, and Little Red Riding Hood (we had to get one princess story in). Later during bath time, she asked me to read to her some more. We had started Stuart Little (a longer chapter book version with very few black and white drawings) a few days before and read a few chapters, in several sittings. I read her 4 chapters while she was in the bath and would have read more but Ezra wasn't as interested as she was. While she was still very excited to see pictures when there was one, they weren't the focus of our reading. She was enjoying the actual story and creating her own pictures in her head. Whew. Maybe this is common, I don't know. I just know I am excited to expand our list and genre of overdue library books, I'm really burnt out on princesses.