"If it's a book I won't be happy"

I am a big believer in breaking down the smoke and mirrors on social media when it comes to depictions of family life. I'm the first to admit that for all my Instagram pictures of a happy family holiday, we also had many days plagued by illness and tantrums. As an act of mercy for my friends and family, I did not photograph these.

On this blog, I write a lot about my daughter's development as a literate person: from reading aloud to taking family trips to the bookstore, to that beautiful day when she asked me to teach her how to read. But maybe some parents who read this are thinking, fine, but I can't get my kid to sit still long enough to read a book, or all my child wants to do is watch TV. If that's the case, know that we all have our struggles. Case in point, my household's Christmas Incident.

So, like most three-year-olds, my daughter loves presents. And this past holiday season was the first in which she was really tuned into Christmas and Santa. As a character-building exercise (yes, I am that mom) I wrapped several presents for her and put them under the tree early, and then told her she could not so much as lay a finger on them until Christmas day. She spent several days circling the tree, looking at the package tags on which she recognized her name, complaining about waiting, and speculating about what was inside the boxes. Then she dropped this bomb: "Mama, if it's a book, I won't be happy."

I'm sorry--what?! I played it cool, but I was upset. This is not what we're working toward. I know that in the hierarchy of toddler gifts, toys are at the top, and clothes are--well, you don't give a toddler clothes as a gift. But I never thought she would say a book would make her unhappy.

But then I recovered and rallied. I talked to a few people and found out that others had similar gift-giving experiences. Morgan gave her four-year-old nephew some Minions books, which caused him to pull her aside and ask quietly, "was that... all?"

And Alex's horse-loving niece tossed aside two horse-related books in favor of the stuffed animal that was also in the gift bag.

I found it feels good not to be the only one, which is why I am sharing this story with you. So this is how I decided to handle the situation:

Be cool. If I turned this into a really big deal, I knew she would get turned off and refuse to discuss. It's important to me that books are fun for her and never emit a whiff of duty or obligation. So I just said, "Really? Ok." and left it at that, for the moment.

Consider the source. I reminded myself that she does have a tendency to exaggerate, or to say things as an experiment.

Observe. She did end up receiving books for Christmas, and she was not unhappy.

Reflect. When I thought about it, I realized that since my husband and I have access to free books at work, and her grandparents buy them often as well, it is not unusual for my daughter to receive a book for no reason on any given weeknight. She doesn't receive new toys as often, by contrast.

Forge ahead. We're just going to keep doing what we do: read aloud, let her see us read for fun, keep lots of books in the house, look for reading opportunities outside the house, and make everything reading-related as fun and relaxed as possible.

So, that was the Christmas Incident. And if anything similar has happened to you, all I can say is, I hear you, and let's just move forward.