David decided to stay up late reading in bed last night. He popped out of his bedroom and found us around 9 pm looking for some help getting to sleep. The delayed sleep was a bit of a concern since he often could use a bit more sleep instead of getting up for school on time, but today is a Saturday with no plans. After sleeping 2 hours past his usual time for waking up, he is having a pretty chipper morning.
“Going to sleep” joins a long list of other activities that have dropped to a lower priority than continuing to read:
Getting dressed in the morning
Leaving for school
Cleaning up his toys
Telling us what he wants to eat
Coming to the table for food
Leaving the bathroom
Going outside
Responding to questions
Acknowledging the existence of a world outside the book
Given a choice, he will still choose an iPad or television. But he knows those are infrequent offerings, and he is figuring out that we will often defer other plans in favor of allowing more reading time. Choosing to stay in a book is simultaneously a form of escape from the present world and an affirmation of his control over the present world. We do not want to praise this choice too enthusiastically because we want to preserve the internal motivation to read more books, but we are quietly delighted.
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