The Poky Little Puppy

I'm no expert in children's literature. Nor am I am expert on what's normal for kids to be doing at certain ages. So maybe someone with some knowledge or motherhood experience can shed some light on this one for me. Joshua was given a treasury of Little Golden Books by grandma and grandpa for his birthday. It's all the classic Golden Book stories that were read to us as kids and it's really nice. Up until now, it has sat on his dresser to be saved for a day when he was older because, frankly, he couldn't be trusted with paper paged books. They were torn to shreds in a matter of minutes. But over the weekend, I happened to reach for it to look at (mostly because mommy needed a change of pace from the same old books we always read). My expectations were low- I figured he'd maybe page through the book and look at some pictures, but I had little expectation that he would sit through the stories. He found "The Poky Little Puppy" and started making his excited "hee hee" sounds that tell me that he's interested. So we read it. All 26 pages of the story, and all of the many words were listened to intently. Most of these pages are filled with words (if I had to guess, 50-75 words per page- some more, some less). When we were done, he wanted it to be read again. So we did. Now, on a normal night before bed, we're reading this story 2-3 times and then he cries when I put the book away. Does this sound normal for a 15 month old to have an attention span this long for a story?

This morning was so ridiculous that it was almost funny. As soon as he got up, he was standing in the crib motioning and pointing for the book. It was almost as if he opened his eyes and immediately thought, "Wait a minute. What happened to that puppy last night? I NEED to hear that story again!" I was in a bit of a push for time, so I took the book downstairs to the living room with me thinking I could push him off until after breakfast, but that didn't happen. We sat and read the story twice and then needed to get moving on breakfast. He cried like I had taken away his best friend when I wouldn't read it the third time. The only way he would eat his breakfast was if he was holding the book and I was reading it to him while I fed him bites of his yogurt. We read the story 3 more times before Judy got there- and he was on the move to get the book again when I let him out of his highchair. I fear that poor grandma might be stuck reading that story ALL DAY LONG today. It's a really cute story, but everything loses its allure after the 80th time you've read it in a day's time.

Just thought you might enjoy. What a kid! I just hope he's as interested in reading as he gets older- and likes to read things like homework books and things that will get him COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS! Something tells me I may be pushing my luck...