So, Dylan can read now. Which is awesome, because when he wants to read a book when I’m busy, instead of having to stop what I’m doing, I can just tell him to read it himself. He loves it when I do that.
He also loves it when he says he’s bored, because I told him that he has to stop playing video games, and my response is “THEN READ A BOOK!”
Then he’s all: “But that’s boring!”
And then I’m all: “Well, you’re already bored, so you might as well be bored AND reading!”
A love for reading. I don’t think I’m fostering it.
Anyway, his ability to read is mostly awesome. Except, of course, when it’s not.
Take, for instance, the other night when I was on Skype chatting with some girlfriends. The conversation, as can happen when you get a lot of women together, took a turn for the…dirty. It was hilarious, obviously, and I was cracking up. Until I realized that Dylan was sitting right next to me. And even though he was engrossed in TV and not paying me any attention, he very easily could have looked at the screen and seen some things that would have been HIGHLY inappropriate for him to read. Really, it would have led to all sorts of questions that I’m not ready to even THINK about answering. So to save myself from having to have a really uncomfortable conversation with him, I did the grown up thing. I closed Skype.
So now I’m regretting ever encouraging him to read, because it’s starting to negatively impact my online social life. I mean, having kids pretty much ruined my real life social life, and now they’re threatening to take away my internet friends as well.
Being a grown up is so unfair sometimes.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
so unfair, indeed.
This post cracked me up, because your kids learning to read is such a joy and a curse at the same time, and you summed it up beautifully! Once he starts to read more fluently and with more comprehension – you’ll probably have to take the books out of his hand at dinner, which I frequently do with mine. And yes, I remember those occasions when one of my kids would shock me by reading something that wasn’t meant for their eyes, and the realisation, that yes, they could read, thwarted my own social and internet life. Glad he’s reading though – good job Dylan! (Make sure he reads that last part …. heh)
What is with kids these days, taking away the social lives of parents everywhere?
It’s an epidemic.
And way to go, Dylan! Start him on Harry Potter and you won’t see him for a month.
Seriously, this reading thing is out of control!
I shouldn’t have to close tweet deck and Facebook every time my kid stands next to my computer! Why does he have to be able to read?!
THIS is exactly why I moved to China. Because any day now Will was going to see “Max and Ruby” and “Wow Wow Wubbzy” on the cable menu and know that they weren’t cancelled like I told him they were.
When my youngest became a reader waiting in grocery store lines became fraught with difficulty due to Glamour magazine headlines like ‘Delicious sex tricks he’ll love’ leading to the question ‘what does that mean?’ After he reads it in a loud 5 year old boy voice
So funny!!! And now, that Reading Rainbow song is stuck in my head….all day!
You have to admit, it was one of the better Skype conversations, aside from the Cakey incident.