Treasuring the First Time

Tonight it happened. The first of many, many nights. One of the parental lines of my childhood was used, by my partner, toward Pablo. And I was almost giddy with excitement. This wasn't one of those "oh gods, did that just come out my mouth?!" moments. It was honest to goodness wonderful. The line?

"Pablo, please don't read at the dinner table."

Yes, he has had many a book at the table before, but tonight it was fiction! Not an atlas, not an encyclopedia, but real, live kids' stuff. Calvin and Hobbes, to be exact. He was into the story line and couldn't imagine why we would preempt his reading with something so mundane as food and family.

I remember that battle from the other side so well. The children regularly wanted to read at the table and the adults regularly didn't let us. Those pesky grownups. Didn't they understand how important it was to find out what happened next?! The ink and paper were palpably more important than those people who were around all the time anyway. My brother and I even used to fight of over the cereal box so we would have SOMETHING to read at the breakfast table. And now, the torch is officially passed. I am thrilled. Pablo is officially pleasure reading. (OK, maybe all the nonfiction he reads is pleasure reading too, and I just don't share the passion...I try. I really do. But FICTION! That's official by anyone's measurement!)