Is it mean to want to kill a beloved story book character?
I don't care, I want to KILL Spot. You know that cute little dog that hides behind things or has things he has to find behind things. He has ruined my once favorite time of the day; reading time before bed. That time use to be so sweet. Sam and I would curl up in her rocking chair with her blankets and I would read two or three books. She kind of cared which books I read but not really. Then one day I read her the "Where is Spot?" book. This is a lift-the-flap book with lots of other animals hiding behind household objects. It is a cute book, the first couple of times. I would make the animal noises and act surprised when it wasn't Spot behind the flap.
I created a MONSTER. Every time we went into Sam's room, no matter what time of day, she would run to her rocking chair and yell "POT, POT, please.". How could I say no? We started having reading time all the time. After about a week of reading spot several times a day I made the HUGE mistake of thinking that having a second Spot book would make things better for me because I would have another book to read. Not better, worse. Now, we not only have to find spot but we have to walk with him around a farm while he tries to find the baby animals. And we do this several times a day. Cause how do you tell your daughter no you won't read to her when other than pure hatred for the book there is no good reason to NOT read to her the book she wants? And these books are not like other books that I can just hand her and she can "read" it herself without me because then there would no longer be any flaps in the books to be lifted. She tends to get excited and "accidentally" rip them off.
I have begun to try and break the habitat a little bit and get her to go back to sitting for any book. Last night I actually FORCED her to sit on my lap while I read a Dr. Seuss book, good old wonderful Dr. Seuss. She almost started crying but I finished the book.
If your household has not discovered the lovable, adorable Spot DON'T! Leave him at the library for some other family or pick out something else at the book store. Trust me, he may seem cute but reading time will never be the same again.
3 comments:
Abbie! I'm laughing at this. :-) But out of sympathy. We have this Spongebob book called Ice Cream Dreams. I CANNOT stand it and I HIDE it! Sneaky Sneaky. Because if both girls see it they want to read it. And if one of them hears the other getting it read to them at bedtime, she wants it read to her too! So twice in one night. Kill me now.
But I have a question...do you think it's the flap-fun that attracts Sam and not necessarily Spot? If so, I can recommend some other fun flap books to at least give you/her more to pick from.
There's a whole series of books by Marie Torres Cimarusti (Peek-a-zoo, Peek-a-pet, Peek-a-moo, etc). Also Barney Saltzberg's books are fun (Peekaboo Kisses, Animal Kisses, Goodnight Kisses). Check them out the next time you're at the bookstore and see if Sam might like them. They also have a few Dora books that are flap-oriented and the stories are less involved than the Dora picture books (but they tend to be holiday related. We have halloween, valentine and Easter Dora flap books).
I'm sure I could come up with more, but those are the ones that come to me at the top of my head.
nooo Spot is my favorite!! She must get it from her Aunt Kelsey
The kids at the preschool used to want to read a "sunmaid raisins activity book" all the time. I mean...there wasnt even a story!! It was like "can you put the raisins on the gingerbreadmans nose?" And we had NO raisins so it was just me reading a stupid commercial over and over again.
I had to read that book at least 10 times a day. Im not above hiding or "losing" books.
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