What I'd Forgotten

In a family fun magazine, I read about a great summer reading challenge for the whole family. I broached the idea with the kids and they jumped on it. We set the time frame (until August 31) and decided how we'd count (by book or by page....by page won) and made a chart and agreed that the books we were all currently reading would count from page 1 and invited Dad to join our fun and made the prize be the winner picks a family outing.

Now, I read all the time. I'm on book 85 for the year, and yes, I know that because I still am keeping a list even though it's not like last year when I just wanted to know how many books I could read in a year. I still keep a list because I like to make lists. I probably read more than anyone in the family and when we started the challenge, there was some mutterings that it wouldn't be fair because Mom reads so much....

Well, I have other things I have to do. I can't read all the time! I have laundry to fold, tubs to scrub, gardens to weed, scrapbooks to make, dinners to plan.....plus actually going to work takes a chunk of my day away from reading. But I remained confident that I would blast the competition out of the water.

What I'd forgotten is that the same daughter who wore a groove into the couch last year watching Law and Order every day because she loves that show, is the same daughter who raised (by the sweat of her brow) $1600 in less than a year to go on a school trip. Once she determines she is going to do something, she does it with single minded focus.

This last week she's worn a groove into the couch because she's reading.

I've got 994 pages in the last 6 days. She has 1128.

I huff and puff and shake my fist in funny frustration, but I'm terribly proud of her. She's a reader and she comes by it naturally.