Reichen is a reader just like momma.  We have a routine:  he and I.  He selects a book, sits in my lap, and says ‘Please read to me, Momma.’  It’s the most sweet request – one I never refuse even when I’m cooking dinner, switching laundry from the washer to the dryer, while at the same time trying to water the potted plants.

For his first 2 years, Reichen and I read every board book out there, but his favorite:  The Gossie collection by author and illustrator Oliver Dunrea.  You name it, we read it: 

Gossie is a gosling who likes to wear bright red boots every day, no matter what she is doing, and so she is heartbroken the day the boots are missing and she can’t find them.

Gossie and Gertie are best friends. They splash in the rain, play hide-and-seek, and they dive in the pond together. Everywhere Gossie goes, Gertie does too.

BooBoo is a gosling. A small, blue gosling who loves to eat. There is nothing that BooBoo won t try.

A little goose named Peedie tends to forget everything except where to find his lucky red baseball cap.

I truly believe these board books taught Reichen hard to describe concepts such as:  over, under, up, down, backward, forward, rain, and snow – concepts I know baby Latham will learn from this collection too.

Recently, Reichen graduated to reading what I call special books - books that are a little longer, books with amazing illustration, and books with actual pages.  These books have opened up his whole little world and he loves them.  He goes with me to the library every week now to pick out his special books and we read them several times a day.  Here are some of our favorites:

Meet Jumpy Jack, a very nervous snail who’s afraid of monsters, and Googily, who is a—well, who is a very good friend, indeed. Wherever they go, Googily kindly checks high and low just to make sure there are no scary monsters about.

Ready to go to sleep, a multi-legged, long-tailed monster heads upstairs and into a bedroom only to hurt itself on toy blocks left on the floor.

Beneath the sparkling lights of Paris is a circus so secret that only the mice know how to find it.

In this merry, multi-species story cooked up with folksy warmth and humor, everybody gets a piece of the pie — and then some.

My favorite time to read to Reichen is night time.  After putting the baby down, my husband, Reichen and I all pile into his bed to read together.  It’s a tradtion I can’t wait for Latham to get big enough to do with us, too.