Monday, March 21, 2011

Reading Revelry

After school at our house can be described with a variety of adjectives and adverbs added to any noun or verb that describes chaos. It is probably not unlike many other after school home environments. A few years ago, a pop group released a song entitled, “Who Let the Dogs Out?” That aptly describes this timeframe in our home. On a recent, March afternoon, however, something was quite different.

It was one of those days when Mother Nature becomes a vixen and lures us with her charm of unseasonably warm weather. The sun was full and radiant, and the breeze smelled like, well, warm. I was putzing around the kitchen which is attached in a greatroom style to our living area. I had that sudden realization that something was wrong. What was wrong was silence. It’s never silent in our home at that time of day! I stopped in my tracks and looked into the living area. I was stunned to see both of my children and three of their friends all nestled into different pieces of furniture with their noses in books! Sunbeams were enveloping each of them with that wonderful, bone-warming heat, and they were gone somewhere other than the living area, each of them to the place he/she was reading about.

I turned off the oven, grabbed my Jan Karon book and found the last piece of vacant furniture. For the better part of an hour, we all lounged in this manner delighting in our chosen author’s conversation in print. No one even cared that we had toasted PBJ’s for supper!

2 comments:

  1. Sounds delightful! Our home is much the same (the chaotic part...) and I am always so thrilled when I discover that peace has come to the house not through passive means such as children glued to the TV but through the thought invoking, imagination inspiring, interactive pages of a good book. And, toasted PB and J's sound delicious. :)

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  2. Sorry, Mom, forgot to log out. That comment was left by me (not you!) Haha..looks like you commented on your own post. :)

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