My seven year old has an obsession with reading for prizes.

Her teacher set up a program at the beginning of the year to encourage young readers and I thought it was a great plan.

For every ten books the kids complete, they are allowed to choose a prize (donated by the teacher and/or parents).

Some nights, Ellie has only enough time and/or energy to read one story. Others, she wants to read until her drool has glued all of the pages of Fancy Nancy together.

On the list, parents (or kids) document the book title, who they read to and the date the books were read. If the child read alone in bed, under the “who did I read to?” column, we write, “self.”

As a parent, I am 100% behind this program but with three kids to read with at bedtime, I’m not always sober enough to allow Ellie to read three hundred books so I might limit her reading to me to two books and any reading she does over and above, she sets the books in a pile at the foot of her bed. I will collect them and write down the titles before school the next day or whenever the sniffing salts kick in. Whatever comes first.

Sadly, I forgot one time out of the 118 days she has been to school this year so I have a seven year old shadow following me around asking, “Did you write down my books?” “Can you write these down?” “Mom, did you see the pile?” “Did you write down the books? From the pile?” “Write them?” “Down?” “Did you?”  

I find small stacks of books planted throughout the house so like the mind-reader that I am, I must decide when I find books of any sort in any stack around the house whether these are books to be documented or books to be used to climb up onto the counter so I can retrieve the croc-pot.

I realize this is important and I do take my role as administrative assistant to the reader-for-prizes candidate very seriously.

So much so, I think our three year old has caught on.

Yesterday, Chloe would not stay in her bed for her nap. She wanted to go pee (again), she wanted to be read to (again) she wanted some cold water in a sippy cup with a lid and no water. She wanted attention and I wanted my tea.

I finally left her alone to settle herself and snuck back a few minutes later hoping to find her snuggled under pink fuzzy with one of her big sisters outfits on or surrounding her pillow.

But she wasn’t asleep. She was buried under a mountain of books. I could barely see her pig-tails beneath the wall of newsprint.

I knew she was under there and that she was okay because I heard a very faint, tired little voice through a tiny hole whisper, “Mommy, can you write these down?”