After dinner, last night, Monkey Girl begged me to go to the library.
We had been there over the weekend and while the kids are looking for their own books and movies, I always pop a book or two in the bag that I think one of them will like.
I’m usually right, but have had a few misses.
Anyway, I picked out two books, this past weekend that I was sure Monkey Girl would like. One was a graphic novel and another was just a cool book where the story was told through letters and journal entries, etc.
I was right with both.
So, she read one of them yesterday and finished the second today and she was dying to go back, because the one she finished today was Book 2 in a series, and she wanted to know if they had Book 1.
So, after we cleaned up, Real Man went outside with the big boys to have a catch and Tiny and the girl and I headed to the library.
We found the first book in the series, along with seven other books by the same author.
She. Was. Thrilled.
They didn’t have the other one that the other author wrote, but she walked her confident little self up to the librarian and asked her to put a hold on it when it was returned.
As we waited for the elevator to come (we had the stroller, or we’d have used the stairs), she was shifting her weight from one foot to another. I asked her if she was okay and she said, “Mom, I’m just so excited! I can’t wait to start reading these!!!”
Immediately, I was transported back to being 10 years old, myself.
I believe I’ve already shared that at least two nights a week, my Dad would take me to the bookstore at the local strip mall called The Happy Booker (which I’m just now realizing is uncomfortably close to ‘The Happy Hooker’, thus sullying my childhood memory) to buy books.
I’d browse and select and we’d always leave with each of us holding at least two or three books. (We’d also stop at the arcade and spend a good hour there, but that’s a post for another time.)
I, too, would bounce on my feet and run to the car and start reading as soon as possible. Exactly like Monkey Girl.
So, tonight brought up feelings of nostalgia and made me love that particular reflection of myself that I saw in her.
Is it nurture or is it nature?
Does she love books because she is genetically disposed to love them more than almost anything else? Because I do. Because both of my parents do?
Or…
Is it because she has grown up used to seeing her mother, constantly, with a book in her hand? Because, when she goes to her grandparents house, she has to make her way around the piles of books in her grandpa’s home office and library, and the couch is always still warm from where grandma was laying, and the book is still propped open to the page she was on when we arrived?
Maybe it’s a little of both?
Either way, I love it.
And…
I’ll be the first to admit that I see other reflections of myself in Monkey Girl, as well.
When she’s annoyed with Monkey in the Middle, her voice is an exact replica of mine as she tells him to “Knock it off,” and the eye rolls and sighs are perfect imitations of her mother.
Children are definitely a reflection of their parents, and you don’t get to choose what aspects of yourself you’ll see when you look at them.
I think I’ll enjoy and encourage those reflections that warm my heart and will try to work on the reflections that make me cringe.
Because, as my mother always wished…
…I have a daughter just like me.
