Last night Mike and I had a conversation about what happens when a kid gets sick at school. He was shocked to discover that I never attended a school that had a school nurse. I pointed out that I went to small town schools and he attended a large, suburban school. Instead of nurses we had emergency contacts and "town" contacts for those of us that were farm kids and rode the bus.
My "town" contact was my grandmother, who would always be quick to pick me up from school, take me to the doctor if needed, and then settle me into bed in her spare room with my favourite juice (Welch's raspberry) or ginger ale with a bendy straw. Then, depending on how I was feeling, she would read to me. When I told Mike this he responded sarcastically, "Tough life".
Over the years of sickness and sleepovers, (I think I stayed over every Tuesday night for 3 years so that I could go to piano lessons and then attend Pioneer Girls.) my grandmother always read to me. She read me the biographies of Mary Slessor and Mary Kingsley, the real story of Pinocchio and many others. My grandmother, at 90 years old, still reads voraciously, so I've concluded that my love of reading is nature AND nurture. Now if only I could instill the same love of reading into my children without sickness being the cause!
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