Hungry Monkey

All the books say the best thing for Grayson's language development is to be read to. That's nice in theory, but you try to get between our three month old and his nightly snack. His attention span is even shorter than most of our books (and baby books take about 3 minutes to read). I still try to read one board book to him a day when he gets home from daycare, but we've started something that has turned into one of the best times of the day.

During Grayson's last nursing session of the night we nurse on the bed and Andrew sits on the bed with us and reads out loud. Since Grayson can't see pictures anyway while he's nursing we read from a real book. Our first book is Hungry Monkey, A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater. It's great because a) it's funny, b) the eating habits of babies and toddlers have become much more interesting to us in the the past few months, and c) it's well divided into chapters that take about 15 minutes to read out loud.

It is already a really special time to me. Sometimes Chuy gets on the bed too and then we've got the whole fam together. I love that Grayson goes to sleep listening to his dad's voice and cuddling with his mom. It gives Andrew and me a shared experience and something to laugh about together. I think it is something we will all look back on fondly and I hope we figure out a way to continue it for many years- even when the nightime snack changes to warm cow's milk and the books switch to Dr. Suess for a while!

There are recipes at the end of every chapter, so we are trying out two this week- wish me luck!