My son and reading

I was careful to do all the right things to ensure both of my children would grow up to be readers. I was rewarded for my efforts by realizing my goal. My daughter loves to read. The only thing that readily gets her nose out of a book is the Internet and being with her friends. My son also loves to read, but is much more distracted by other things.

Today Andrew scoured the house for a book to read while waiting between matches at his 11 hour long wrestling meet. I thought he hadn't found one, until I saw a beat up second hand copy of Avi's Nothing but the Truth in his wrestling bag. We'd had that book for years; I bought it when I was an avid Avi fan, but as far as I knew, none of us had read it.

I was pleased with his choice and even more pleased to see him reading the book instead of listing to his iPod. Other parents and fellow wrestlers noticed him reading as well (he was the only wrestler reading as far as I could tell).

When asked if he was reading for pleasure or school, he always said "For school." When asked if it was a good book, he nodded. I asked him later if he was really reading it for school and he said no, but it wouldn't be cool to be reading for pleasure.

Go figure.

Elgin boy's Letter To Santa Returned To Sender

ELGIN, Ill. -- Twins Eric and Evan Gilmore wrote out their letters to Santa Claus last week. Grandma put stamps on the letters and mailed them, as she has in years before -- To Santa: North Pole.

However, grandma Nancy Teafoe was surprised when 4-year-old Eric's letter was returned Monday with the notation "Return to Sender, Insufficient Address, Unable to Forward."

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This would never have happened back in my grandfather's day as assistant postmaster of Elgin post office. Letters to Santa were treated differently than regular mail. Regular mail had to be sent. Letters to Santa were brought home by my grandfather so we could enjoy them and hope the kids actually got what they wanted.

Ok, maybe that only happened once, but it did happen.