It’s been a while since I updated about the chapter books we’ve been reading. Books we’ve read with Anna since my last update include Mary Poppins, A Bear Called Paddington, Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Read-Aloud Treasury, The Lighthouse Mystery, Mountain Top Mystery, Schoolhouse Mystery, Caboose Mystery, and Houseboat Mystery. The last five are Boxcar Children books, and David has been reading those with Anna. That has become their special thing. I read the others, usually right before nap time. I used to put Sarah down for a nap earlier than Anna and then read with Anna, but lately Sarah has joined us and has done pretty well.

I’ve been a fan of Pooh for a long time, but I just discovered Paddington. He’s wonderful! We’ve only read one book, but there are lots of them and we plan to read more. The Raggedy Ann and Andy stories were sweet, a little sappy at times, but still pretty good. Anna liked them, and she and Sarah got a special surprise when I gave them my Raggedy Ann dolls (I had two) from my childhood. Mary Poppins is very interesting—pretty different from the Disney movie. There are actually several books in the series; I’ve read the first four myself, but only the first one with Anna so far. While I find the movie’s portrayal of Mary Poppins’ personality more likeable, the books include many magical moments that I’m glad I didn’t miss—P.L. Travers had an amazing imagination!

I seem to have a new habit of collecting book lists. As I muddle my way through children’s literature, thankfully there are many who have gone before me who like to publish online their lists of favorite books for children. There is a lot of overlap, of course, but with each one I seem to find more books I want to check out. We won’t run out or reading material for a while! Or ever, really. There are more good books out there than we could read in a lifetime—and most of them FREE electronically or through the library. It’s astonishing.

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Once, a long time ago, Anna and I were sitting at the kitchen table, and the topic of rainbows somehow entered the conversation. She said, “I wish we could see a real rainbow someday.” I said, somewhat absentmindedly, “Well, maybe we will, someday.”

She suddenly got this look of shocked surprise, then a smile of delight slowly crept across her face as she said, “Rainbows are REAL?!?”

“Why, yes, honey, rainbows are real.”

(Pause.) “There are REAL rainbows?”

“Yes, there are!”

Where had she seen rainbows? In storybooks, of course—usually fantasy-themed stories about fairies and princesses and such. On kiddie paraphernalia along with balloons and hearts and teddy bears. At the face-painting stand at carnivals. But a real one? What a sweet surprise to find out that something so wonderful as a rainbow really does exist!

Ever since then, I’ve been wanting her to see one, but we never were in the right place at the right time. (It might have something to do with the fact that if it’s raining, we usually don’t go anywhere!) But tonight, the moment finally came. Ladies and gentlemen, Anna’s first rainbow:

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Anna took 2 weeks of swim lessons at Hendrix last month. She had fun and learned a lot! She still isn’t quite to swimming on her own yet (more than a few feet, anyway), but she is SO much more comfortable in the water than when she started and is well on her way. The first day, she didn’t even want to put her face in the water, but by the end, she would hang onto the side and dunk herself 10 times in a row.

I like the way Hendrix does lessons. Instead of diving up by “class” where each kid is supposed to be at the same level and learning the same thing, they just take the kids that signed up for that time slot and group them by age 4 to a teacher, then the teacher works with the kids at whatever level they are and whatever pace they need, leading them through the same progression of skills as far as they can get.

Here are some pics:

Anna was great at floating on her back!

The grand finale—jumping!

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