I have very fond memories of my mother reading to me when I was a toddler and I hoped I could do the same for my daughter. However, her obsession with messing with what ever object I’m holding and disrupting what ever task I’m trying to work on makes reading to her more akin to a wrestling match than a developmental experience.

She seems to like being read to, or at least she likes the attention, but it’s difficult to read from a book that’s constantly on the move because she wants to hold it. She’s grasped the concept of turning to the next page, but can’t read so she changes the page as soon as I make any vocal pause. Pages with multiple sentences are treacherous.

I feel like I’d be better off improvising what the pages say instead of actually reading, but then I feel like I’m tricking the kid, which is not the impression I want to give her when she learns to read and realizes she’s been duped. Also, I’m confident she’ll realize I’m not actually reading from the book when she randomly closes it and attempts to bash me with it—I have no idea where that behavior is coming from, but I think she’s trying to bring the book closer to my face so I can see it better. At least she’s got good intentions.