It's Never Too Early to Introduce Your Son to Neil Gaiman

Simon and I just finished The Graveyard Book, his very first novel. Of course I also have some picture books lined up for him, Where the Wild Things Are and whatnot, but I was excited for this particular book to be his first read, or "read to by his mother," to be accurate.

Simon's other firsts:

First song: "True Love Will Find You In The End," Daniel Johnston
First movie: Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (that he seemed to watch, anyway . . . the first movie put on our television after he was born was Overboard)
First store: Target (yeah.)
First restaurant: A&W (root beer YUM . . . maybe this doesn't count until he eats at the restaurant?)
First laugh: playing with Uncle Ben
First time to roll over: Last Thursday while I was trying to get a picture of him in his bear hat that's so large on him it looks more like a viking hat
First smile: At the hospital (Doctors say it's just gas but I say NO)
First illness: Staph infection at 2 weeks old . . . awful

Also, on a reading related note: is it cool to hate reading now? With the kids, I mean? Seve says more than half of the students he works with have declared a hatred for reading. I understand that sometimes when a kid struggles with reading it's easy to just say you hate it, but it seems I'm running into kids who are embarrassed to admit they read and that it's uncool to read at all. My niece is hesitant to admit she reads anything outside of a school assignment. When I was a youngin' it was cool to say that you could spend "hours at Barnes & Noble" whether you enjoyed reading or not, because appearing smart was the way to be. Is it lame to be smart these days? If so, then I hope Simon will be mega lame.

Writing that last paragraph suddenly made me feel very old.