Victor's books

Victor loves his books. Ever since he was about 7 or 8 months old, he's been really into having us read him books, or just flipping through them by himself. He went through a short period where he lost interest, but for the past 3 months or so he's really been back into them. We have them all arranged in the living room and every morning/afternoon/night he'll bring us each one he wants us to read, over and over again (to the point where I have to hide them once they've been read or else he'll keep bringing them back!) It's annoying, but I know it's also good for him to have these books and to hear the same stories, told in the same ways, with the same voices, over and over and over and over again :)

Anyway, as part of my 'use this blog as a baby book' philosophy, I thought it would be nice to record what books Victor loves right now, at 15 months. Most of them we've had for a long time, I find it's hard to incorporate new books into his routine, he loves his favourites, but soon we're going to have to, because these books are basically all torn to pieces!

Snowy Bear and friends. Same series as Squishy Turle and Fluffy Chick. We have this in hardcover, not cloth, but he's starting to like it anyway (I think it's the newest one we've incorporated).

This is probably his favourite right now, even though half of the tabs have been ripped off! I read it to him in French (I make up the words), and Dan reads it to him in English, so that I think that's part of why he likes it, both of his parents can read it to him :)

This is another one that has been ripped to shreds, I think there are maybe 4 tabs left to lift, but he loves it anyway. Cute baby animals :)

He wasn't into this one at first but now I think he likes it more than Squishy Turtle.

This is his favourite French one, and mine too. All about appreciating what you have and what the day brings. Plus I think the little boy looks kind of like him and the cat looks like Shimi!

He's starting to like this one more, I think that's it's a bit long for him, we skip over the last few pages and I shorten the text quite a bit, but it's still cute, more kitties!

This one was given to us at the hospital when he was born and it's very sweet. For younger kids, but Victor still loves it (it used to make me cry when he was younger, but now I try to make it more peppy so that I don't shed any tears, haha!)

The classic. This will always be his 'first' book in my opinion, he loved it sooo much when he first started getting into books. It's not the first one he reaches for now, but we still keep it around and he likes it from time to time.

(A note on reading in English/French: We don't really have a 'right' way of doing this, but I find that generally, Victor knows not to bring the French books to Dan (or if he does he quickly discovers that it wasn't the best idea, haha!), but he does bring the English ones to me (along with the French ones). Some of the English books I've translated to read in French (like Where's Spot), but some of them I'll read in English (like Squishy Turtle or Fluffy Chick). A lot of times I'll read the text in English, then point to the animal and say what it is in French, so he's hearing both words. I don't think that it has confused him, he seems to know what things are in both languages. I've been meaning to write a blog post on my experience so far with raising a bilingual child, but that will probably come later, once he actually starts talking beyond a few babbly words that could be English or French...)

Anyway, another fun thing we've been doing with books lately is incorporating actions into the stories. So on certain key words he'll wave his hand, or clap, or make the animal noise, which has been really fun, you can see how his mind is expanding. The more interactive, the better in his mind (and it's more fun for us too!)

Ok, well that's that, I wish I could say I'll be back with some belly shots but truth is, I'm about 3 weeks behind at this point so I don't know when/how I'll catch up!  'Tis life I guess, I'm terrible at keeping up with projects like this, why do I keep attempting them?!

Be back soon-ish,
G.