A.R. Geiger

Any of you remember those summer reading programs we did when we were kids? You know, when we got prizes and stickers for reading books AND for keeping track of what we read?

Yeah. That was the dream.

I’ve missed those ever since I became an adult, because for some weird reason, not a lot of places are that eager to give a 30 year old a sticker for reading her Benjamin Franklin biography all the way through to the end.

Which is a crime, in my opinion, but whatever.

Anyway, I put this chart together for Adam and I. And before any of you snicker and say, oh, he’s two, he’s too young to get the point, wait a few years—

Y’all. The stickers are for me. They are my stickers. For me.

You think my son needs to be reminded that reading maximizes his cognitive and language abilities and effectively lays the foundation for his future learning and literacy capacity?

No. He just wants to read The Little Blue Truck for the seven hundredth time so he can hear his mommy do the silly voices.

You know who does need to be reminded? Me. Because I work full-time, have a book that was supposed to be to my editor two months ago, and live in a perpetual state of tired.

Which might make you think that a chart would not help, but never underestimate the power of stickers, y’all.

That chart’s gonna motivate us all summer long.