When Christopher was 3 years old, a prolonged period of quiet in the house was enough to strike fear into my heart wondering what Christopher might be up to. With Christopher in school, we have many periods of prolonged quiet in the house, and I inevitably search out the cause and find that it is because Cate has discovered an interesting book.

Both of my kids love books, and I am sincerely happy about that. For Christopher, much of the fun in books is the intimacy it creates as we sit and share it together. Or the really cool things he can learn from books that only mom can read -- a lot of the books he can read for himself still aren't terribly exciting or interesting so books mom reads are still preferable to him for their information and more intricate plot structure. For Christopher, sitting quietly on the couch for over an hour by himself is hard to do when it is competing with making trucks roar, and battles rage in the toy room. If mom is there reading with him, he could sit for hours, but not so much by himself.

Cate, though, will do anything to find a grown up to read to her -- we joke that she would beg a complete stranger to read to her, if she could. If she can't find somebody to read to her, she's very happy to sit for an hour on the couch looking through books on her own. Man, is that girl going to be thrilled to learn to read by herself. Yesterday, she wasn't tired for a nap in the afternoon, so I didn't insist on it. I did, however, insist on quiet time, and I was thrilled at just how quiet she could easily remain for well over an hour while mommy worked. She sat on the couch downstairs and looked though a pile of library books. Never would have happened with her brother.