The Fat Cat It Is!

In a post that I made last week about books that I loved as a pre-teen, I mentioned how my two younger kids are showing signs that they will be readers like me. One of those, our ten year-old son, G-man, is who this post is about.

He recently got in trouble for sneaking a laptop into his room and watching videos instead of sleeping. One of his punishments was losing access to all electronics for a couple of weeks. If any of you has kids in this day and age, that’s a pretty brutal punishment, both for him and for us. Now he is “SO BORED” and “HAS NOTHING TO DO” to which we reply, grab a book and read. This is not too bad for him since he is a great reader who actually enjoys tearing through good stories.

Earlier this afternoon, mom had to take Willow to ballet so she took the boys with her to hang out, do some schoolwork and get a bit of reading time in while they waited. As they were sitting in a little cafe called Rejavanate, G-man asked if he could stop doing school and do some reading as he had a couple of books that he had brought with him. She said no at first but he persisted in asking so she finally relented and said yes, that he could read. Naturally, she presumed that he meant to read one of the books that he had on the table with him. But no, he reaches for his pocket and says “The fat cat it is!” and pulls a Garfield comic strip book out of his shorts pocket.

He LOVES Garfield, the books, movies, and the show, and will often default to these when he wants to get a quick read in. I adored these books too when I was his age and remember buying loads of them at garage sales, used bookstores, and wherever I could find them. They were like comfort food and were always good for a good laugh.

It’s a win for us and for him too, as long as he’s reading something, right?