Reading Begins With Siblings

The "featured image" above shows SteelyKid and The Pip checking out a couple of books at The Open Door during our weekly trip to the Schenectady Greenmarket. As cute as this is, though, the image can't do justice to the full scenario.

We were in the toy section looking for a birthday present for SteelyKid's BFF, and after she found a couple of things, she announced her intention to look at books in the cheap paperback racks right next to the toys. The Pip, for his part, waddled off to poke around the store looking for books featuring Elmo, or things that look like Elmo, or just odd bits of red that he could point at and say "Elmo?"

He hadn't gotten very far, though, when SteelyKid announced to the store in general (and people across the river in Scotia-- we need to work on her inside voice) that she had found a book and was going to read it. Whereupon she flopped down on the floor in more or less the position you see in the photo.

When the Pip saw this, he immediately grabbed the nearest book, ran over to her, and flopped down next to her in the same posture. Unfortunately, the book he had grabbed was a trade paperback poetry anthology, which lacked interesting pictures and was too hard for him to hold open, so he got up, handed it to me ("No book!") and found a coloring book in another rack, which he brought over and opened up, and kept looking at long enough for me to stop laughing and get my phone out.

The Little Dude sure does love his big sister. She's pretty fond of him, too, as she was willing to humor me and pose for this (she had finished "reading" her book by the time I got the phone ready, and was ready to rampage off to the next thing, but I got her to lie back down...).