What We're Reading

And it really is "we" who are doing the reading now. Fiona has her own library card, sits in the back seat of the car reading books out loud, and even writes words on her own. She can recognize most short words (the dog and the cat went to the zoo with a pig) and can recognize many longer words from context (it helps of course that all her books have pictures). And when she sees a road sign, or the title card on a cartoon, or just a piece of mail, she tries to read it (and often succeeds).

Generally we're reading two books at bedtime (depending on length), with Fiona reading one to whichever parent is doing bedtime and then having us read one to her. If she's interested in a book she starts reading it by herself very quickly. The beginning reader books come in various levels that are supposed to indicate difficulty, but Fiona will struggle with some level ones and then tear through level threes.

We got her a book called Dogerella which, as you could probably guess, is a spin on the Cinderella story from the perspective of a dog. It was 48 pages and was marked level 3 (and there were a number of multi-syllable words). But it was a fairy tale story about a princess and a dog, so Fiona picked it up right away.

She also loves books about animals. We have a book called After the Dinosaurs about all the mammals who came along after the dinosaurs but before the last ice age. Lots of names that make me glad the book includes a pronunciation key. Fiona brought it to school to read to her friends.

And of course we have to read all sorts of insipid stuff like books in a My Little Pony series or whatever else Fiona has picked out. Painful for us at times, but less so because she's reading the words to us.

She gets tripped up on words like "why" or "where" when they begin a sentence and she doesn't have context for them. Yesterday she read me Barnyard Dance and kept struggling with the word "spin" while having no trouble with "patch of clover" (granted, she's heard the book read to her plenty of times in the past).

Now if we could just get her to understand the concept of reading a book over multiple sessions. Her parents are chomping at the bit to jump into Alice in Wonderland or Stuart Little, but we haven't convinced Fiona about this yet.

And Would Our Health Plan Even Cover That

Fiona's ear was hurting a bit this morning, but only to the point where we wanted to keep an eye on it. I told her if the pain got bad to let us know and we could go see a doctor, but otherwise she should enjoy her friends.

And so she went to school and enjoyed her friends all day.

And then along about 7:15 or so, with pajama time looming, it suddenly occurred to Fiona to start complaining about her ear.

Again, the pain didn't seem genuinely bad (it was hardly distracting her from playing), but I know to keep alert when kids complain about ears, so I told her we could see a doctor in the morning if it was really bother her.

"I want to see the doctor now."

"The doctor's closed now."

"The doctor can't close!" she protested.

"The only doctor who's open is the one you see if you break a leg," I replied.

"What if you break an arm?!" she asked.

"They won't see you then."

"Why not?"

"I'm joking."

"The doctor's not open until morning?"

"Nope."

She thought for a moment.

"It's morning in China right now, Daddy. We could go see a doctor in China."

Kids come up with arguments you never would have even had on your radar. I wasn't sure what to tell her about first: the fact that it would be evening by the time we landed or that I'm guessing standards for safety in children's medicine aren't the strictest over there.