Sleepy Reading

Matthew is away at a work retreat this week. He left yesterday morning and isn't back until Saturday evening, and I miss him already.

This morning, I missed him a really lot, because first thing in the morning is his time with Elizabeth. He gets her at 6:45 when she wakes up, and either brings her into our bed for family cuddles (on the weekends or later-start work days) or into the bathroom and she plays while he showers. So I get an extra 15 minutes or so of snoozing. But this morning, with no Matthew around, I went and got Elizabeauty, and brought her into our bed. I just wasn't ready for the day yet. I reached for the first book of hers I could find. It was (of course) Noisy Cars. With a button that goes "beep beep beep".

Whatever, as long as I could lie down. Then she let me know she wanted me to read it to her, by doing the sign for 'more' (in this case, 'more' means 'read this to me now, Mum') and pushing the book into my face. I didn't have my glasses on, so I did some 'contextual reading' via the pictures. Here were the best parts of the book, for your enjoyment:

"This is a red car. Red cars go really fast. Nanny has a red car. She drives really fast. This is called a 'family four-door' car."

"This is a police car. They have sirens that go 'nee-naw-nee-naw'. Police officers stop bad guys from doing bad stuff. They also stop you when you are driving your car too fast. If this happens to you, be like Auntie Suzie, and lie to the police officer about how your car is making a funny sound and you just want to get home safely, and they will escort you home. Or be like Uncle Chris, and get a speeding ticket, but pay it off before Mummy & Daddy find out about it."

"These are race cars, and sometimes they're called Nascar, or maybe the race itself is called Nascar, or something. Nascar is really popular in the United States. Maybe in Canada too, but not in our house. Race cars don't honk when they pass you. In fact, I wonder if they even have horns. They do make really loud sounds when they race, and there is a race in Edmonton every year called The Indy, and it is held at the old airport downtown. I wonder if there will be a race this year because the airport was closing. I wonder if anyone in Edmonton will really care. Nobody in our house will care."

"This is a convertible car. See how the lady driver has grey hair? That is because you can only afford a convertible car when you're retired and you use up all your savings to buy it. See how there is a sailboat in the background? This must be the old lady's retirement cottage by the sea, and her husband is sailing their boat while she drives to the little town for groceries at the market. When you're rich and retired, you will only buy groceries at 'markets' not 'grocery stores', and you will have a convertible too, if you want one."

She loved it.