This book that Tristan is holding is the only book guaranteed to survive his destruction.
He was in 4th or 5th grade. During that time, he became highly destructive with books. This was a challenge because our home was full of readers. It felt like this behavior came out of nowhere. All of a sudden, we were hiding all the reading material. Let me paint a picture…Tristan would get a hold of a book. Then he would take it to his room. We would hear him giggling and RIP! There went the pages. Constantly, we were scoping all the rooms out and hiding our reading materials because once Tristan got a hold of them, that was it.
This was especially difficult on our older son. The local school had a reading program that promoted reading at home. We had local library books. I knew at this season of life, I might be shelling out money to replace books. That is just where our family life was at.
One day, I received a flyer from school for Tristan’s book fair. I thought this “shopping” experience would be beneficial. Until then, I had not learned how to integrate him into the shopping world. Little did I know what experience I would gain. Even though we loved books, this was apparently not an interest for Tristan. I tried. I really, really tried. I read to him. I provided books. Even despite his destroying them. I resigned from the fact that there would not be a love of reading passed down to him. sigh
Off Tristan went to the school Book Fair. He came home with the book “Nugget and Fang.” I was elated that he brought home a book and completed a shopping trip.
After looking at his book and showing him how excited I was, he quickly grabbed his book. Tristan took his book and walked over to the closet with games. (Every door had a lock on it.) Tristan slid his book under the closet door! He made a statement to be sure his book was safe from destruction!
I stood with my jaw dropped. Tristan does understand that books have value- at least his book. Maybe one day, he will enjoy them as much as I do.
Enjoy another healthy dose of laughter from our home!
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