Winter days

Every year around July, the endless, dreary days of winter bring on a melancholy of spirit that is hard to shake. It is not the cold. It is the greyness, the lack of light that affects me. But just as I thought I could not stand yet another rainy, overcast day I woke up this morning to sun streaming through my bedroom blinds. Making the most of it I threw open all the windows, letting sunshine flood the house. Soon the rooms were filled with the earthy smell of eucalyptus and sun-warmed grass.

After breakfast I put on one of my daughter’s favourite CD’s and danced to Justine Clarke, my daughter squeezing her eyes shut as she spun around the room. After a morning tea of avocado on toast and yoghurt, instead of clearing the table for table tasks as we normally did I left the dishes as they were and upended a large box of blocks onto the lounge room floor. As I lay on my belly building towers blocks, Elizabeth banged them together or jiggled them by her ear, occasionally knocking the towers over with a squeal of delight. Afterwards we lay in a patch of sunshine as I read her stories and sung her nursery rhymes. For lunch, instead of having the winter fare of soup and crackers we shared a plate of mini sandwiches, fruit and cheese, picnic style.

As Elizabeth dozed on a full belly I sat down and begun to write, the first real writing I had done in weeks. Being only July, I know that winter will all too soon re-assert herself, but if we are graced with the occasional day such as this I think I might just get through it.

Reading Magic

I feel the closest to my daughter when I’m reading to her. I love watching the look of utter delight on her face, the way she shakes her little hands when she is excited, the way she hits the page signalling ‘more’. Being non-verbal, the ability to read is very important, so I have tried, since she was very little, to read aloud to her six to eight books a day (sometimes more on a particularly good day). That is why when I was perusing the local bookstore I was instantly intrigued when I came across the book Reading Magic by Mem Fox. A huge fan of Mem Fox books I immediately bought it. When my daughter lay down for her afternoon nap I made myself a cup of tea, put my feet up and was instantly absorbed. It is only a small book and I was able to complete it in a couple of hours. She writes that if parents understood the huge educational benefits and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parents read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation.

In regard to myself, she was preaching to the converted but I thought back to discussions I’ve had with one of my good friends, an early childhood teacher. She mentioned that at the beginning of each Prep year there are those children (more then you would think) who had never opened a book or picked up a pencil. I find this utterly inexcusable as reading aloud to your child, especially with access to so many good libraries nowadays, is totally free. Of course, there are those parents who are illiterate themselves. My response is, what a wonderful time to learn to read. There are many great initiatives run by the government that offer free advice and services.

And those parents with special needs children like myself who have refrained from reading to their child because the child has been completely unresponsive please persist because the reward is so worth it. It took a year reading to her on a daily basis before my daughter showed any interest in books (and believe me I felt extremely disheartened at some stages as she often appeared to drift off in her own little world. But of course, I now know differently). But now at four years of age, my daughter finds enormous pleasure in reading time. Of course, she will always have her off days when her concentration starts lapsing after the third book but on most days I can now keep her engaged for up to six books at a time. The secret of course to keeping reading time enjoyable is by reading expressively, be animated (I wrote one time that a friend’s speech therapist was so boring that her child would fall asleep during the consultations). Secondly, forget the “lesson” aspect of reading. Reading aloud together should be fun. As Mem Fox writes, entertainment is the teacher. Teaching before school kills the fun. Children like their parents to be parents, writes Mem, not teachers. We are after-all, trying to encourage children to love reading and they won’t love reading if it isn’t fun. And lastly, buy beautiful books. My most recent acquisition is Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. A book about friendship, I must have read it at least twenty times and I still get choked up at the end. I don’t know whether my daughter understands the moral of the story but she seems captivated every time I read it. And those writers out there who don’t read to their children, shame on you.