Most mornings now F likes to bring a few books downstairs with her and sit on our bed while I finish getting ready. Lately she’s taken to un-making the bed enough to pile up the pillows and make herself a cozy little nest. She has not, however, taken to re-making the bed when she’s done.
I’m usually ready before I get the girls up, but I leave drying my hair until the last. So if she’s sitting on my bed, then I’m likely in the next room with a noisy hairdryer on. This does not stop her from trying to carry on a conversation with me. It just makes her louder.
Mommy!
MOMMY!
What are these letters?
WHAT ARE THE LETTERS?
At this point I’ve turned off the hair dryer and come to the doorway because all yelling sounds like some dire emergency yelling when you have that kind of hot air noise in your ear.
What. Are. These. LETTERS?!?
(We’ve had this conversation before. She wants me to be reading to her, not getting ready for work.)
I remind her that she knows her letters now (even though she still doesn’t pronounce her beginning s- sounds) and she should find some that she knows. This does not satisfy her. Not at all.
I FOUND the letters already. Make the letters a (s)TORY. I want them to be a (s)TORY!
…
This is the beginning; I remember it well. That desire, even packaged in the bossiest of voices, is music to my still warm ears.