(Contributed by Angela Workman. Read about all our contributors here.)

My son loves to read. Actually, “loves” may not be a strong enough word to describe his intimate connection with his books. Some kids carry around a precious stuffed animal or a favorite snuggly blanket, my son carries a huge Dr. Seuss Compilation book. He began dragging this book behind him while he started crawling. It’s an adorable spectacle really, watching him schlep this book everywhere.

He reads this book in the car. He sleeps with this book every night in his crib. When a new guest comes over to visit, he shoves this book in his or her face to get a new fresh perspective of the tales inside. And speaking of the tales inside, there are five amazing Dr. Seuss stories inside my son’s treasured book:

1. The ABC Book
2. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
3. Green Eggs and Ham
4. Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now!
5. The Shape of Me and Other Stuff

My husband and I have all five amazing stories memorized.

We don’t even require reading the words anymore; my son turns the pages and my husband and I recite the lines from memory…from subliminal retention after endless days of repetition and reiteration. During dinners when he’s acting a fool at the dinner table, I’ll recite one of the stories from “his book” and he’ll quiet right down. Sometimes I’ll play Bingo on my phone and recite the story effortlessly as my son turns the pages eagerly with a smile.

He knows when I mess up though. Oh boy does he know! If I misplace a word or recite the wrong page out of turn, my son will immediately stop, look up at me with his big brown eyes, and put his hand on my arm. I’ll suddenly notice that my face is not being fanned by the ferocious turning of pages and look up from my phone into those little stern eyes. Eyes that look a bit too wise for two years old at this particular moment. Eyes that hold mine with an expectation revolving around the knowledge that Mommy should be expertly and deliberately delivering the correct words to correlate with the pictures he’s looking at. Eyes that are making me feel like a bad mommy for playing Bingo on my phone and messing up his treasured story.

Yeah, I’m that mommy sometimes…the mommy playing phone bingo.

And I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I really want to be when it comes to my son. I feel guilty when my baby catches me not paying attention to him. So I stop, and I set my phone aside, and I focus. “Sorry, Lukey.” I say as I give him a kiss on his forehead and begin the page again. He always forgives me. He just moves on…but maybe with a sideways glance that hints toward retribution if I do it again.

That retribution is usually a dirty diaper or the slow pouring of his entire juice onto the couch. Either way, while I’m changing said stink-diaper or as I run toward him as he’s slow-pouring the juice onto the couch, he intensely glares straight at me.

“You know why…” his eyes seem to say.

And I do. I do know why.

Here’s the kicker, folks. My son is just like…well…me. My mom bought me the complete collection of Dr. Seuss books when I was a kid too. I carried around the same two books until I went to preschool, and ironically, one was The ABC Book and the other was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. My mom would sit and read them to me endlessly. Come to think of it, she’d recite them as well! I can’t think of a time she declined to read me my books, or allow herself to be distracted by a mindless game while we spent time together. I loved that I had her undivided attention….

It was that thought that led me to my come-to-Jesus moment,“Be present for your son; put the phone away, Angela…FOREVER!”

Well, maybe “forever” is a bit much.

I started with allowing my phone to be what it actually is, just a phone. I don’t play with it when I’m around my son; I set it on the counter and only use it when I need to make a call or answer a call. I wonder, if I invested even more time into being present with my son, how that would pay off for the both of us in the long run. I’d bet the farm to say that it will pay off in dividends. More time to read my favorite books with him. Maybe more time to paint and color with him. More time to hike and find cool plants or teach him to fish or build a fort or dance like monkeys. WOW! Is my phone keeping me from all that?

Probably.

My son is a bookworm, as am I. I think it’s high time this bookwork crawled out of her phone and back into the books where her son resides. As Dr. Seuss would say,

“I like to read,

oh yes I do.

I like to read,

I’ll read with you!”

Originally Published 8/25/2016