When my children were itty-bitty babies, I read to them. I read to them every night. I read to them every single night as recently as last year, when I concluded J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Then summer came, I was in bed before they were - and they were older. Then school started and they had required reading - and I was unable/unwilling to fight them in the evenings. Life, you see, oftentimes interferes.
So it was was open-mouthed dumbfoundedness when I walked in on them the other day...and my oldest was reading to my youngest. His old Goosebumps books. The ones I used to read to him, he is now reading to her. It made my chest swell with pride. A day I thought I'd never see.
He's 11 now, and she'll be 9 in June. They've started sleeping in the same room despite them having separate bedrooms, and he now reads to her every evening.
A father couldn't be more proud.
I sure love those kids.