We went to Beers Books, a used and new bookstore, as we often do. I wandered with him over to the kids area, where, for decoration, they have several stuffed animals high on top of the bookshelves. "BUH!" Lochlan practically shouted. Now, Lochlan calls nearly everything some version of "buh," but that sounded like his buh-that-means-dog. I followed his gaze. He seemed to be looking at a large, red stuffed animal of Clifford the dog. "BUH! BUH!" He reached his arms out towards it and bounced up and down. "BUH!" He was definitely looking at Clifford. That gave me an idea.
I turned around to leave the section, and he turned, his eyes never leaving Clifford. He seemed distressed as we walked away, and he continued to hold his arms out toward it. "BUH!"
I asked at the front counter the author's name for the Clifford books. The young lady looked it up for me, and we went back. "BUH!" In a few minutes' searching (the alphabetization is somewhat suspect), I found the original Clifford the Big Red Dog book. I bought it for him.
Now here's the funny thing. He loves books. He looks around the page at the pictures, crawls to me if I lay down with one of his books, and seems generally interested in other books. But the Clifford book -- he grins, he laughs, he pats the pages, and he interacts. Oh yeah -- if I ask him on the page where Clifford is "hiding" if he can find Clifford, he either looks right at the spot or touches it with his finger. He is legitimately thrilled about this Clifford book.
Anyway, in a year, maybe he'll be over Clifford. Maybe by the time he's ten, he'll ask what he liked when he was a baby, and I won't remember. But I'm putting it down here so there's a record. At 11 months old, the first book he really loves is Clifford the Big Red Dog.
1 comment:
Coincidentally, about 5 minutes before I read this, his Clifford stuffie arrived in the mail. It's not as big as the one you saw but I think he'll like it.
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