Olivia and The Amazing, Interesting Case of Reading, Mistaken Identity, and Scritchpers

Our family loves books. We like to read them, look at them, smell them, sort them, shelve them, share them. To me, reading is as important as breathing. I have to read a little bit of something everyday or my world will implode.

In the last few days, Olivia and I have read at least 50 books together. She has a rather eclectic taste and can sit through long stories. Even in Spanish. My Spanish. She's a sponge. We can read a book together once, and then I'll hear her "reading" it to herself or Lamb E. She's got a great memory, and she improvises well when she can't remember details.

Yesterday we read all of our library books in one sitting. After the third one, I asked, "What's next?" She replied, "Jesus Christ Won't Get Out of the Bathtub." Um, what??

Me: "That's King Bidgood in the bathtub."

Olivia: "Oh, it looks like Jesus Christ. You know? Jesus Christ Amen."

I do know, but it was definitely King Bidgood who wouldn't get out of the bathtub! It's been a while since Olivia looked at a picture of Christ and identified Him as "Jesus Christ Amen," Amen being His last name. I thought we had cleared that up for her.

And that's a good segue into my next topic. We've been reading the scriptures at bedtime. Olivia's pronunciation is "scritchpers." I love to hear her say it. She's not really of fan of scripture study. We try to make it fun for her--Brigham does a better job than I do--and keep it brief. We ask her questions to keep her focused, and she sometimes asks us questions, too (mostly "why?").

Following "scritchpers" we have family prayer. Lately, Olivia has wanted to say it every night. We ask her beforehand what she is going to be thankful for. The last few nights she has been thankful for "we're going to Grandma and Grandpa's house and Gram and Granddad's house," and "Christmas and Halloween."

Oh, and everything these days is either "amazing" or "interesting" or both.