Our Hobbit

Aiden, and his noble steed

Frodo, cousin of Bilbo

When we were on our awesomely awesome date night last Saturday, we happened across an edition of Alice in Wonderland that had beautiful artwork by Robert Ingpen. Sean likes to add to Aiden's book collection, so when we went home he purchased it online. We also bought him The Wind in the Willows (my favorite children's book, I actually didn't read it until I was 18) illustrated by the same man, and an illustrated version of the Hobbit.

Aiden has been expanding what type of books and stories he'll allow us to read him (what a benevolent dictator, no?). This has saved my sanity because I was going to lose it if I had to read Little Ambulance (or the Nah-Nah book, as he calls it) one more time. Sean will literally spend and hour or two reading to Aiden from books of poetry, he even managed to read him large sections from David McCullough's 1776. Mostly he's stuck with poetry, but just recently Sean read to him from this illustrated Hobbit.

Hoo-boy, this has set off something in Aiden and now it's all he wants to hear. I personally think the book is pretty scary (goblins! giant man eating spiders!) but Aiden LOVES it. His new favorite word: Bilbo! ( the main character). Anytime we sit down to read it's "Bilbo! Bilbo! Bilbo!". It's kind of neat because Sean loves the Hobbit and the following Lord of the Rings series, but I have a secret fear Aiden's going to end up being one of those kids that plays Dungeons and Dragons all day.

I guess reading anything is good, and Aiden isn't really old enough to grasp a whole lot of the story anyway, but if he ends up being twenty five and living in the basement playing Magic cards all day, I'm blaming Sean.