8 Milestones in a Bookworm Parent’s Life

1. Your toddler brings you a book and then plops down in your lap for you to read it to him.
You’ve been reading to your little one since he was in utero, but this is the first time he’s actually requested it! Of course, the Instagram-worthy moment may not last long, as most babies have the attention span of a goldfish. For my 19-month-old, it went something like this: “Awwwww, you want me to read you The Runaway Bunny?!” I read two pages, and then she promptly snapped the book shut, put it back on the bookshelf, pulled her sister’s hair, and then ran away laughing maniacally. At least she put the book back on the shelf?

2. You finally master reading Fox in Socks aloud without cursing.
“Take it slowly. This book is dangerous!” You should definitely heed the warning at the beginning of this Dr. Seuss classic because it is a beast in terms of its tongue-twisting antics. Sure, there’s the chance you may mispronounce one of those “fox”es as another less kid-friendly f-word, but more likely, you’ll just be cursing (hopefully silently) passages like this one: “Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew. Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze. Freezy trees made these trees’ cheese freeze. That’s what made these three fleas sneeze.” But with practice, you may someday master all those “muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battles,” much to your kids’ delight.
3. You catch your kid “reading” by herself.
You walk into the living room, and there your genius toddler sits on the sofa READING A BOOK like it’s her job. Sure, the book is upside down. And it’s actually your copy of Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me?. But who cares?! Your baby is reading by herself!
4. You realize your kid is finally old enough to read something other than board books without eating them.
My toddler’s favorite food is raspberries. But her favorite things to eat are rocks, chalk, and paper. Therefore, the only books she can be trusted not to snack on are board books (though, yes, I’ve heard of friends’ kids who have managed to take a bite out of those hefty pages too). The day that you can finally read them the regular hardcover version of Goodnight Moon without fear of them eating the “Goodnight mush” page is a beautiful one.

5. You accidentally give your kid nightmares with a bedtime story you had no idea was scary.
Every kid is different in terms of what’s scary to them, but there are some books that you probably have a good idea to steer clear of for very young kiddos—like the Grimms’ version of fairy tales like Cinderella in which the wicked stepsisters cut off parts of their own feet. But there are also books that you loved as a child and are excited to read to your kids that you have no idea might freak them out for reasons you never even considered. Take Frank Asch’s Popcorn, which seems like a fun little story about a bear named Sam who has a Halloween party to which all of his friends bring the titular snack. Sam and his pals pop all the popcorn and it fills the entire house. They end up having to eat their way out and are all pretty sick by the end of it. Now suddenly your kiddo is terrified of being smothered by popcorn. Or perhaps the manic-looking moose Harold draws to eat all the pie in Harold and the Purple Crayon is enough to send your little one over the edge. Or maybe she’s sobbing over the scary bird-looking old man at the end of Shel Silverstein’s classic The Giving Tree. Whatever weird and unexpected thing it happens to be, congratulations on giving your kid nightmares. It’s a rite of passage.
6. You can’t skip parts of a book anymore in the name of getting the kiddos into bed earlier because they have the whole thing memorized.
It’s a happy and sad day when you skip a sentence or two (or even a couple of pages), and your kid totally calls you on it. They know the whole thing word-for-word now, which is super-exciting—yay for early literacy!—and super-exhausting on those nights when you’re just ready for that overly demanding mouse to stop asking for such a long list of things already!

7. Your kid has learned how to use books against you. Reading to your children is obviously amazing for their brain development, their relationship with books, and their bond with you. But sometimes it has the unintended consequence of teaching them more than you intended. Whether that means they get inspired by Harry the Dirty Dog to hide their hair brush under the couch cushions or they learn from Olivia how to master the art of bedtime book negotiations: “Only five books tonight, Mommy,” she says. “No, Olivia, just one.” “How about four?” “Two.” “Three.” “Oh, all right, three. But that’s it!”

8. You can (finally!) introduce them to one of your book BFFs, Harry Potter. You’ve been anxious to get your kid into the wizarding world ever since you found out you were expecting. And now, at long last, you can break open the glass case you had built around your Harry Potter books just for this occasion and begin a marathon read-aloud session of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Squee!
What are some bookworm parent milestones you’ve experienced or are looking forward to?