Bookworm

All of a sudden, Jayden is obsessed with books.
He seemed to enjoy us reading to him, especially a big animal book that had colorful pictures of all kinds of critters, but many times reading was more of a chore than a pleasure. He was (is) addicted to "Little Einsteins" the way certain Minnesota bloggers are addicted to cheese curds, and when we asked him if he wanted to read, he would say, "no."
And, to be honest, by the end of the day, we were so tired, we were fine with him watching his cartoon.
Bad parent. This despite my love for words and writing and reading. Bad parent. This despite the fact that I could read at a high level when I was in Kindergarten, and I think that was because I had a knack for it, "Sesamee Street" and my parents willing to read me a book all the time.
Jayden still lags a bit on talking. He's a couple months past two and still does not use more than one word at a time despite knowing plenty of words. I'm guilty over that, wondering if we had read to him more if he'd be talking more at this pont.
Bad, bad, naughty parent.
So I'm relieved he's suddenly so into books. When I come in his room to get him in the morning, sometimes I find 5-6 books on his bed, something he was obviously doing instead of sleeping (that kid does not know how lucky he is to be offered at least 10 hours a sleep a night). He wants me to read to him all the time. He even wants to read, occasionally, when those little smart, musical, crack fiends are on.
As a society TV, video games, texting on the phone and surfing the Web are valued more than reading. I'm sensitive to this, perhaps more than I should be, because newspapers have taken a severe hit in the last year, and I wonder if I'll have a job in 10. Maybe even five. We don't read enough. I wonder if it wasn't for blogs, we would read at all anymore.
I'm just as guilty. After spending all day at work writing, I don't want to read when I get home. I'd rather play online poker or video games or watch a movie, if I have any free time at all after appeasing Jayden and the twins.
But Jayden has inspired me. I am reading again. I'm reading my magazines, I'm staying in touch with your blogs, and I'm even reading books again, this time "Bigger Deal," a freebee a lot of you got and already read months ago. I devoured Harry Potter. I have a stack of books that I'm going to attack, not all of them poker books. I need to be an example for my son.
I want my bed to be covered in books when I wake up, something I should have been doing years ago instead of sleeping.

Edit: I went downstairs this morning and caught him reading this. Cool! This is not a pose.