Familiarity...

New York is an interesting place. It's interesting because it's different than the west. I can travel to many cities in many states out west and find familiar restaurants and shops. When we first got here, everything was unfamiliar. Of course the east coast has different restaurants and grocery store chains. That's fine. We introduced ourselves to new places to buy food and carried on with life.

After a couple weeks, we were pretty homesick. Painfully homesick. One Monday night, I googled "Village Inn." I'm not a big fan of the restaurant, but I knew I had seen one somewhere. And it's familiar. I knew every one of the children could find something they like to eat there. Who doesn't like pancakes? Besides Chris, I mean. He's not a big fan. Unless the pancakes are laced with chocolate chips. We carefully followed our GPS to the Village Inn . . . and guess what?! It was part of a shopping center! There were other stores around! Familiar ones. Ones we have in the west.

Now in my heart of hearts, I always have thought I'm the sort of person who values small, local business above the big box store. In city planning (my major), we criticize the "Anytown, USA." That's a reference to a city that has nothing distinct or personalized about that city. Even small towns need a distinct identity. As an example, I refuse to shop at WalMart. Absolutely refuse. There. That's because I oppose the whole idea of all of this.

But then I saw a familiar spread of restaurants and stores and I felt myself relax. After we ate a (not-so-tasty) familiar dinner at Village Inn--or was it Denny's? I don't remember--we walked next door to Barnes and Noble. I love Barnes and Noble. Love it. Even though it's a national chain that is probably responsible for many Shops Around the Corner going out of business.

For reasons I have not yet explained in the blog, we did not have any books with us. All of our belongings were in storage. So, even though we were almost broke, I bought each of the children a new book. I don't really have the right words to explain how this changed our attitudes and emotions. Each of the children spent the next couple days reading. Even Nathan, who doesn't exactly enjoy reading, couldn't wait for me to sit with him and read. He had that book read before I knew what had happened.

Books. Even more so than having a familiar store to buy them in, having books to read is what started to make New York our home. We love books.

Success!

Ammon learned to read, and read well, when he was pretty young. But I have not been able to get him interested in chapter books. I have checked out various types of books from the library--he'll read them if I force him, but he'd rather not. A while ago, I was pretty worried about his lack of interest in reading for fun on his grade level. I e-mailed my friends, Neal and Kristi (who have 8-year-old twins) for some book ideas. I couldn't even get him into the ones they recommended. (But I haven't tried all of them yet!) Then Chris brought home a book called "Rocks and Minerals." Ammon couldn't put it down. And he comprehends it. I decided not to worry. He just has different interests.

Later, he got some different chapter books for Christmas. He was uninterested. But Grandma JoAnn gave him a Garfield book. He loves it and reads it constantly--over and over. Maybe he just has different interests. But come on! He's got to learn to read real books at some point. As I started to worry about him again, he surprised me. He took the new Bible he got for his birthday to bed with him. In the morning, he said, "I read the first chapter of Genesis by myself." I asked him some questions and found that he has a good comprehension of King James' language. So, I decided not to worry.

One book Ammon got for Christmas was the classic, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Since he wasn't going to read it by himself, I decided to read it to the family. Of course they love it! Nathan hangs on every word with his eyes as big as his ears. (I couldn't think of a good comparison.) Everyone laughs and wants to read another chapter. And then another. After we finished the 2nd chapter, Ammon stole the book. He took it to bed with him two nights in a row and had it finished! It's like a little dream come true for me. Ammon read his first book. Ammon read his first book. Hurray!

By the way, now the kids want to watch the movie. We tried showing them the Johnny Depp one about 4 years ago and it scared the chocolate out of them. I didn't watch the whole thing because it was traumatizing my children. Those of you (with normal children) who have seen it, do you think my kids can handle it now that they know the story?