N is for Nocturnal????

OK, so the other day I went to a parent group to let the little guy and me socialize. Yes, I know you are supposed to learn something from the facilitator but it was a Friday, it was cold outside and I was dying for a chai latte…so a parent group looked like it was going to hit the spot on all fronts…until I got there. Maybe I still haven't fully embraced my sing-along-song-with-cheesy-hand-motions self but this class was more than I could keep a straight face for. The teacher, while she meant well, was educating us moms on "good" reading choices. For me, that includes Dr. Suess, Eric Carle and other fun kiddo books which means anything short, lots of good pictures and humorous. Apparently, that does not "make" good reading material these days. In my defense, the little guy has knows where his feet, hands, eyes, teeth and nose are. Unfortunately when the dude is asked where his nose is or sees the "Nose Book" he puts his finger up his nose. While this totally cracks me up, I know in another 6 months this might not be so cute…LOL! Anyhow, back to class. This woman strongly recommended that we, moms of kiddos less than a year old, read our kids some sort of ABC book. I was thinking to myself…BINGO!…I have been reading the little senor Dr. Suess' ABC book. So far so good. The teacher said it was important that there were pictures and repetitive letters…Cha Ching! Still good on that front and thats where it took a tune for the worst. My books sound more like this: Big Z, Little Z what begins with Z? A Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz as you can plainly see (insert picture or pink and white checked monster-thing with funny yellow eyeballs and teeth). The teacher recommended some sort of ABC book with "N is for Nocturnal." My first thought was HUH? Did I just hear that right? Just as I was running through these thoughts in my head…the educator was chattering away about how we have to challenge our babies with more interesting reading material. I am sure thats true and all but when has the letter "N" ever been associated with "nocturnal." She also went on to talk about how if we don't read to our kiddos now, this will lead to illiteracy which leads to poor performance in school and so on a so forth. Holy moly thats a lot of pressure! While I get the jest of what this woman was saying, it was really stressing me out. Was I reading to the little guy enough? Was it educational enough? Any then I sat back and thought about it all…I should be reading books that the little guy enjoys and breeds a love for reading. In the years to come, the idea of "better" reading materials will be more important. For now, I will look forward to making green eggs and ham while reading Dr. Suess' "Green Eggs and Ham" with my little dude.