reading material

Well, I'm continuing my great Reading Material Experiment.

When William was only a couple of days old, I started out by reading the perennial favorite "Good Night Moon" to him, while we snuggled on my bed. When I was little, I always loved looking for the little mouse on each page, so I'm looking forward to teaching William to do that when he's big enough to really follow along. In the meantime, however, I point out the mouse to him anyway, for my own amusement.

We've read an eclectic variety of other stuff since then: a couple of Baby Einstein books, an article about the new documentary on Al Gore from the New Yorker, part of an article about the Democratic Party's woes in the Economist, and today, a Sports Illustrated article debating whether or not Barbaro can win the Triple Crown this year. I'm not sure if any of these made much of an impression on William, though. I will say one thing, though: it's sort of exhausting when I read the big magazine pieces to him because I always feel compelled to fill in all the details of things that the authors assume that their readers already know about. William, of course, doesn't yet understand that the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont States are the three races that make up the Triple Crown, and he wasn't around for the 2000 presidential election, either. Let me tell you: nothing is quite as absurd as trying to explain the electoral college to a tiny baby. But hey, you never know, what these kids are going to pick up, right? :)

Maybe I'll downshift back to "Good Night Moon" again for awhile. Or hey, we have a new copy of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" around here somewhere, and if there's anything that William instinctively gets, it's eating!