For crying out loud, you know the duck learns to swim

The title of this blog is actually a sentence I have said to my daughter on more than one night lately. Not angrily, of course, but teasingly. While Abbie is only 14 months old, she has already built up quite the library of books. She loves to have someone pull her into their lap and read her a story. For her first birthday and Christmas, I asked all of her grandparents to buy her more board books, because after we read to her, she likes to grab the book and flip it around and play with it by herself.

So every night, she gets at least one story read to her, depending on how sleepy she is after her bath. I try to mix up the stories and keep in interesting. I have even left a handful of books in a storage bin we keep in the living room, along with some wooden puzzles and a few other toys, so she can just grab out of there whenever she wants to.

Lately, she always seems to go for the same book. Over. And over. And over again. And after she has flipped it around a few times, read it out loud to us (yes, I know...it's really more like she is singing a song of jibber-jabber, but we know she is reading it to us), she will bring the book to one of us.

Yup, she wants us to read it to her. And since I read her a bedtime story about 80% of the time, she typically brings the book to me. Does it make me a horrible mother to tell you how much I have grown to hate this book. I have managed to muster up all the enthusiasm and cheer that I can in my voice. I think I play it off pretty well. I mean, will this poor little duck actually learn how to swim? Will the friendly sparrow really drown this time if the duck doesn't get his oil-filled feathers in a row and jump in the pond to save him??? It is a mystery!!

Abbie, the duck learns to swim. Surely you know this by now.

I actually think I have the entire thing memorized. Which works out really well since Abbie tends to run those adorable hands over each page. She points at the duck on every page and says "dug" and just grins at him. Honestly, it is adorable. And I know I will have to save this book forever and always, because I'm sure there will come a day when I wish she would let me read to her about the scared duck and the chatty sparrow.

Here are a few pictures I took just the other night. I was preparing our dinner and Abbie had been running a big circle through the kitchen and living room. All of a sudden, she got really quiet (she tends to laugh while she runs) so after about 15 seconds of no noise at all, I went to check on her. This is what I found.