Boy reads, makes mom a little sad

I never imagined this, but the first time my son read a page of a book to me -- really read a book he had not heard before -- I almost cried.

I want my kids to be readers. I am devoted myself as a parent to that more than any single thing other than, perhaps, simple safety. If I want anything for my kids, I want them to enjoy reading and to be good at it.

So why did my heart clutch a little when he tentatively -- but with appropriate intonation of questions and exclamations -- read me a simple page of one of the Frog and Toad books?

It's no surprise really. The first step a baby takes is, after all, their first step toward walking away from you. And it's the same with the first word they read. Our favorite part of the day is reading books at bedtime and there will come time, not too long from now, when my son will tell me to go away so he can read all by himself. For one tender moment, I regretted that. And I regretted every time that I did not treasure bedtime reading enough -- the nights when I thought I could not get through another Thomas the Tank Engine book, the evenings when I wished The Color Kittens would paint themselves into a corner and never come out.

I also thought about how my ability to shield my son from the world's sadness and ugliness was diminished. It was just a few months ago, when the bridge fell in Minnesota, that my family was watching the TV coverage in horrified silence. My son wondered into the room and asked about it and my father-in-law told him that a bridge fell down and then added the easy lie that parents are so inclined toward. "The people in those cars," my father-in-law said, "sure had to swim quick to shore."

My husband and I don't know if that is the right thing to do exactly, but it is what we do -- more often than not. But we won't be doing that for long. He can see the death count crawl across the screen as well as anyone.

So that's why my heart clutched, but then I looked at his face -- joyous and free. And I said "hurrah!" And I really meant it.