It sounded impossible. Unfathomable. A nice idea, sure. But nothing that could possibly pan out. Not today. Not in 2015. Not in our cell phone tweeting, video screen blaring, media invading, attention-free world.<\/p>\n
Nu-uh. Never happen. Nice idea, but not realistic. <\/p>\n
Whose idea was it? Strangest of all, it was the kid \u2014 not the parents \u2014 who dreamed it up: Family reading night.
\nShe wanted to read to us. <\/p>\n
My daughter had been planning it. Spending who knows how many hours coming up with the perfect book \u2014 \u201cAbby Cornelia\u2019s One and Only Magic Power.\u201d (Ironically, it was written by personal technology consultant David Pogue.) She teased it for days. She must have had a huge marketing budget. Planes flew over the house advertising it, and there was a laser light show that flashed: \u201cComing to a night near you. Get ready for some reading!\u201d
\n<\/p>\n
I felt ashamed at my first thought: Are you kidding me!?! I have to sit in a seat and listen to a book? Can\u2019t we just watch TV instead, or funny cat videos on YouTube? Someone sent me a link to bunnies doing really dumb things. Let\u2019s watch that!<\/p>\n
I mean, it\u2019s after work. Adult-folk want to lay around like sloths \u2014 dead sloths!<\/p>\n
I felt ashamed that I even discouraged it. <\/p>\n
But she couldn\u2019t be dissuaded. She gathered us around the table and scooted over a bar chair so she could sit high above us. For no fathomable reason, she started clearing her throat: \u201cAhem! Ah-heh-heh-heh-hem!\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she read. <\/p>\n
It took a moment. I squirmed at first. Thought of things I could be doing. Needed to be doing. Wanted to be doing. The siren song of email called to me from my phone. The meteor storm of multitasking rained down on me. Different thoughts, concerns, responsibilities, bunny videos. \u201cBri-annnn! Where ARE youuuuuu?\u201d<\/p>\n
But as she started reading, it suddenly all went away. I was there \u2014 right there! \u2014 lost in the story. <\/p>\n
The kid had done it. In a world of technology and unending responsibilities, the little 9-year-old had figured out how to cut the chord \u2014 I mean, the wireless. She had done the unfathomable.<\/p>\n
My dad came to visit last weekend and she read a couple more chapters from \u201cAbby Cornelia.\u201d When he left, he made her promise that she would start Skyping him to read the rest. He wanted to see how it turned out. <\/p>\n
Now she\u2019s taken to the office where she shuts the door to read to my dad. It\u2019s private. Between a girl and her grandfather. She put us on temporary hold. But I want back in. What makes the old guy so special? I want to hear how the magic camp turns out, too! To once again banish the meteor storm of multitasking and the cell phone siren song. To get lost in our tech-free reading night. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It sounded impossible. Unfathomable. A nice idea, sure. But nothing that could possibly pan out. Not today. Not in 2015. Not in our cell phone tweeting, video screen blaring, media invading, attention-free world. Nu-uh. Never happen. Nice idea, but not realistic. Whose idea was it? Strangest of all, it was the kid \u2014 not the parents \u2014 who dreamed it up: Family reading night. She wanted to read to us. My daughter had been planning it. Spending who knows how many hours coming up with the perfect book \u2014 \u201cAbby Cornelia\u2019s One and Only Magic Power.\u201d (Ironically, it was written by personal technology consultant David Pogue.) She teased it for days. She must have had a huge marketing budget. Planes flew over the house advertising it, and there was a laser light show that flashed: \u201cComing to a night near you. Get ready for some reading!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,561,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-nutshells","category-family","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1353,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions\/1353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}