aging

I know I don't normally post this often, but I could not let this discovery pass without comment. I have gray hair. I was kind of hoping that I'd gotten my father's caliber of hair and my mother's color, but alas, it is apparently not so. I saw some in the mirror tonight and asked Andy to double check for me and he shared the happy news that it is not one or two, as I thought, but at least fifteen (and apparently in a clump). I guess it means that I'm an adult, beyond any doubt. Somehow 31 always seemed older to me than it does now that I'm here.

We live a bare three blocks from the Pasadena Library, which is in a beautiful historic building. We've been taking advantage of the proximity by a weekly walk to rotate stock on the books, but I have been struggling with keeping up with Michael's voracious literary appetite. We finished kindergarten with him slowly reading through books like Frog and Toad All Year. I took a break from pushing him to read out loud very much over the summer, but encouraged him to look through books as he liked (and, of course, kept reading to him myself). Somewhere along the way, he started looking at the words more than the pictures and now he is unstoppable. I have been desperately looking for books which will last the entire week (I failed this week), which I approve, and which he will enjoy. One item I have discovered is that we were really blessed by Lakes Regional Library's impressive collection (probably due to the large amount of space available: they are buying books like mad to work on filling the shelves. I bet that job is a lot of fun. Seriously.). I have researched and tracked down titles, many of which I remember from my childhood (what does that say about the caliber of children's literature being produced in the last twenty years?), but which our library doesn't have. Thankfully, at least one of the branches tends to have the book in question so I can get it eventually.

Some books he has read in the last month (or someone has read to him; you can probably figure out which are which): The Boxcar Children (many books in the series), Encyclopedia Brown (the series again), King of the Wind, Redwall, The Story of the Treasure Seekers. I'm waiting on Henry and Ribsy (that was recommended and not sure where else to start with Cleary, so many books) and will also get The Littles and I forget what else. Any suggestions?

I will say this library has about a dozen E. Nesbit titles, which Lakes Regional does not. If you don't know her, I will tell you that CS Lewis references her in the first page of The Magician's Nephew and the Bastables are well worth the read. They are, in fact, the Treasure Seekers, and their adventures are a jolly good read (so to speak).