Why My Child is Going to be Afraid of Swans

Although breastfeeding and I are not BFFS, it does have its unexpected benefits.  Since I now spend at least three hours a day quietly sitting with Madeline, I have time to read again. 

As an English teacher, it's my duty to make sure I have a literatre child, so I read aloud to her while she's eating.  (Pretty soon Eric will be forcing a miniature trombone into her hands and making her march around the house.)

When Madeline was fresh out of the oven, I read her age appropriate children's books.  The problem with those stories, however, is that they're not very interesting for me.  For example, here's the text from her favorite book: "One, Two, Three, Triangle, Square, Circle."  While it does offer a plot twist jumping from, "Three," to "Triangle," instead of four, I need a book that will take more than five second to read. 

Therefore, I moved on to Winnie The Pooh.  Entertaining for mummas; cute for babies.  Perfect!  Following the same princible, I revisited two of the Harry Potters followed by The BFG.  Sure, these books were a little over her head, but at least they were meant for kids, right?

At that point I ran out of children's books so I read her Three Cups of Tea instead.  Not a children's book at all.  Still, it does deal with schools and mentions children....Besides, let's be honest, Madeline doesn't know her elbow from her bum yet.  As long as I'm reading with a pleasant tone, she doesn't care what I say.  Right?

In between books, I've also been known to read her Outdoors, Entertainment Weekly and Men's Journal.  (We don't subscribe to any of these magazines, they just show up to my house every week....I swear!)  Oh, and O Magazine...which I DO go out and buy on occasion.  Obviously.

Last week we read The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which is a book of short stories by Roald Dahl.  They are not children's short stories.  Included in this book is a particularly creepy tale where a young boy is tortured by some bullies.  With particular cruelty, they kill a swan and tie its wings to the boy's arms before making him jump out of a tree to "fly."  Again, Maddie's not listening, right?

Now, we've delved into The Hunger Games.  For those of you unfamiliar with this young adult trilogy, it's about a group of teenagers who are selected to fight to the death on a reality TV show.  It's even more screwed up than The Jersey Shore. The ending of the first book, in conjunction with seeing Black Swan last weekend, left me with some pretty messed up nightmares.  (What is it with swans these days?!) Still, I quickly downloaded Catching Fire, the second book in the trilogy, to my Ipad in time for Maddie's bedtime story the following night. 

I like to believe that Madeline has no idea what I'm talking about, and I'm doing her a favor by reading aloud to her.  Still, there's a part of me that's beginning to worry about the content I'm choosing for my four-monther.  If the subconcious is as powerful as some suggest, Madeline may grow up with an unhealthy obsession with celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, a thirst for violent television, and an irrational fear of swans. 

Maybe when we're finished with The Hunger Games, we'll try our hand at something a little less violent.  My Ipad does have Alice in Wonderland on it.  No violence...just don't eat the mushrooms Madeline.