Judith's week

For Christmas, Judith got several books from Aunt Katie. A couple of these were instant hits, including "Llama Llama Mad at Mama" and "Cookie's Week". Soon after Christmas, these would be on the daily required reading list, often multiple times per day, for a whole week at a time. Well, it wasn't long before Judith started repeating little bits of the books back to us as we would read, which is of course very cute.

For whatever reason, "Cookie's Week" dropped off the radar screen for a little while. Then suddenly, this past week, she was asking us to read "Cookie book" again. I (Robert) read it through with her once. Then Judith proceeded to recite whole pages of the book back to me. I asked Judith if she wanted to read it to me again, so we went through it one page at a time, and Judith was able to recite, with pretty good fidelity, every single page. Now, I don't think she's actually reading, because some words she replaces with synonyms (e.g. "trash" instead of "garbage"). She also thinks every day of the week is Wednesday. Also, we asked her if she could read us another book ("Corduroy") which we had just read to her and she started from the back page and read "ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya" (which is not part of the story!). Still very cute!

So anyway, the other night, we recorded video of her reading to Mommy, and then of her reading to Daddy. We've posted the clips here. Now, between the poor quality of the compressed video, and Judith's little voice, it might be hard to make out what she's saying. So here is the story of "Cookie's Week" by Cindy Ward and Tomie de Paola, Scholastic Inc. Cookie is a black cat with white paws and tummy and green eyes, that gets into mischief every day of the week.

On Monday... Cookie fell in the toilet.
There was water everywhere!

On Tuesday... Cookie knocked a plant off the windowsill.
There was dirt everywhere!

On Wednesday... Cookie upset the trash can.
There was garbage everywhere!

On Thursday... Cookie got stuck in a kitchen drawer.
There were pots and pans and dishes everywhere!

On Friday... Cookie ran into the closet before the door closed.
There were clothes everywhere!

On Saturday... Cookie climbed the curtains.
And Cookie went everywhere!

Tomorrow is Sunday...
Maybe Cookie will rest!



Now, by the time we get to Judith reading to Daddy, she is running out of patience for this. Heaven forbid that she have to read the same book over and over again! :-) Also, she has lately become fascinated with looking at pictures and video on the display screen of the camera, to the point that it is now getting very difficult to take pictures of her - as soon as we turn the camera on, she insists that she wants to see the screen, and starts trying to grab the camera from us. I'm guessing this was not usually a problem with 35-mm film! And at the very end of the story, she clearly has something else on her mind! (How can she read about a cat named "Cookie" and not think about treats?)