Zoe, Josie and I went to the library last week. Chasing a toddler around trying to keep her from digesting the books while simultaneously being asked to read to three year old Zoe was a challenge but these are the times that can pay off hysterical rewards.

Scene: Mommy and Zoe sitting at dwarf-sized table

Zoe: Read this book, Mommy
Me: Zoe, that's a baby book
Josie: umrmph (chewing corner of book)
Zoe: READ IT!!!
Me: OK (opens book which contains one picture and two words per page)...Cheese...Queso...Yellow...Amarillo
Zoe: (shoving book to the side with disdain) Stop. I don't like French.

Awesome!

Then she proceeded to select 4 Halloween themed books (yes, it is January, and yes, I pointed out to her that these are Halloween books and might even be too scary for her). Zoe stood on the stool at the auto-check-out kiosk and slid the card and books under the scanner all by herself. Mommy juggled 5 books and Josie (swallowed by her enormous parka), and herded Zoe to the car. As we dropped the books between the car seats, Zoe said "Mommy, we have to go back and return this book, it's scary". To which I replied: GET IN THE CAR! and we headed home.

She has read those halloween books every night since. Oh, and it turned out that the one about the Ugly Pumpkin is actually a Thanksgiving book, also totally appropriate for early January.