A dollar a book

The sky is gray. The teapot is chipped. !? Not by me was it chipped. Someone has been meddling. Probably Elphine. She comes in what feels like every few minutes and announces in apologetic up talk, “I’m going to boil myself an egg and make a pot of tea and lie on the couch and read my book.” I usually just nod, because I’m not really listening, so it could be that she is doing this ten times, or only two. As often as Baby Egglantine is making herself a chocolate roll up, Elphine is soft boiling herself an egg and drinking a pot of tea.

What about me, where’s mine, I always mutter. But not very loudly, because I don’t actually trust Elphine to boil an egg to my own specifications. Sometimes I walk in and she, Elphine, has her little sisters all around the kitchen table, dolling them out eggs and tea. Some of the eggs are really soft boiled, the yolks running down the sides of the egg cups. Sometimes they are hard as a brick. Apparently she times the boiling of them all on her iPod, but just because she pushes start, doesn’t mean she pays attention.

So far she has read through most of the Laura books in this fashion. She has two more books, I guess. She keeps telling me and I keep forgetting. After reading all of the Internet about good ways to get your kids to love reading–though, who am I kidding, I don’t really need the Internet to tell me–I decided I was still too lazy and tired to do any of those things (turn off the tv, go to the library, read the occasional book yourself) and went with the morally reprehensible option of offering straight cash. “I’ll pay you a dollar for every book you read,” I announced, but without any up talk.

“Only a dollar?” Alouicious raised his eyebrow. He needs cash, lots and lots of cash, because Matt lets him ride his bike to The Park Diner and Subway with someone else’s kid. While Elphine is inside quietly boiling herself mounds of eggs, Alouicious is eating soup and icecream that he has to pay money for, and lending all the rest of his cash out. Here’s a good lesson for an eleven year old boy: Don’t Lend Money. No one will ever pay you back.

“One dollar per book” I repeated. He heaved an angry sigh and picked up a longish looking tome. He’s a smart kid but not so smart as to game my clever system by only reading short books. Meanwhile Romulus, who neither eats food, nor needs cash, read two short books and started a long one, all the while laying his exhausted furrowed brow on the floor.

“Tell me about what you read,” I said later. He giggled and began a long, complicated, desperately boring narration of each paragraph in order. Five minutes later I interrupted. “Cut to the chase,” I said, “what happened in five words or less.”

And that’s really the lesson, I think. Children have plenty to say, but who can hear it all without fogging out in a haze of exhaustion or boredom. They don’t listen to me all that much, and a lot of the time I probably don’t listen to them. We all need a vacation. Praise the Lord, we’re pretty well in the way to get one. And I will pack some books, even one or something for myself. And I will buy eggs when we get there. And I will take the metal tea pot, because this one is so chipped.