I am Kyle's self-indulgence

Recently Erika was passing by the dresser in our bedroom and saw sitting on it our glasses, a copy of The Brothers Karamazov, and a postcard print of a Frieda Kahlo painting. She snapped a picture of the little scene and titled it "Nerd Love." It’s a term we have occasionally used to refer to our relationship, particularly at those times that our shared introversion and love for books reveals what a perfect match we are.

It’s not just that we like books: the very act of reading itself, preferably side-by-side in bed or on the couch with a thick blanket pulled up over us, makes us all warm and fuzzy inside. At times we truly crave that experience, and can’t wait until dinner is cleaned up and the kids are in bed so we can just enjoy the pleasure of reading in a quiet house.

We also share a uniquely nerdy fantasy. For as long as we have had kids, we have dreamed of the day that they will be enough to read independently. When that happens, we can spend our afternoons sitting around the house as a family, each of us quietly reading our own book. I’m not kidding: this idyllic scene is something that we actively fantasize about.

I’m telling all this to explain why Erika and I experienced so much excitement when Daniel recently showed us he can do this:

We have been excited about every milestone in our children’s development--the walking, the first words, the self-feeding, the potty training--but I think this is the most exciting. The ability to look at symbols on a page and translate them into words and ideas is not easy. I can remember the feeling of not being able to read, the awareness that there was a whole segment of human experience that I could not access. Daniel reading from Hop on Pop represents his first steps toward joining Erika and me in the literate world.