If you know anything about our family, you know how much we love books. So naturally we want to foster a love of reading in our Baby Love. It follows that an important part of the Sandersization of Lily would involve an introduction to the local library to help her secure her very own library card. Besides, any reader knows the library is the only sensible way to feed an insatiable appetite for great books (which tends to be a distinguishing Sanders trait). And though they don’t have a single braille book in circulation, our library is an important link to literacy for Lily, since she does have some vision and she’s still on the listening side of the whole read aloud exchange. So while I keep working at the process of getting her signed up for mail order braille books, we’re going ahead with our introduction to great books. After all, the words on my book bag remind me…

[ Lily’s Favorite Books at 21 Months ]

• Moo, Baa, La La La!                  ~ Boynton
• Doggies                                     ~ Boynton
• Old MacDonald Had A Farm     ~ Illustrated by Lara Ede
• Chicka Chicka ABC                   ~ Martin & Archambault
• Black on White                          ~ Hoban
• From Head to Toe                     ~ Carle

I love the beach! Living as close as we do to the coast affords occasional one-day excursions to the lovely islands off the port of Charleston. Sullivan’s Island was our destination for Lily’s first visit to the beach and it was a day to remember.

Seeing Lily enjoy the sand and sea for the first time was one of those moments by which life is measured. She loved the relentless, predictable breaking of the waves and squealed with delight at each splash. In her usual way, she bore the salty water in her eyes as a minor inconvenience and when a wave splashed in her face, she took it in stride.

Lily loved the wide open space of the beach. She danced around on the even terrain of the sand singing to herself confidently and contentedly.

It was a time to celebrate life and thank God you are alive…

and we did.