A milestone

I'm not going so far as to hope right now, but I just told Ella that her "half-hour-with-the-book" portion of school had run over.

"Can I just finish the story?" she asked. "It won't take me too long."

This is a first. Seriously. I know she's 8-almost-9, but the child simply doesn't (yet) like reading for pleasure. The rest of us will all all be sitting around reading for pleasure, and she'll be doing anything but. I'm holding out hope, of course, that this will change, that she's simply a late bloomer on this one. There is so much in the world of books for her to discover and enjoy, and I want her to get in the habit of doing so frequently.

Unfortunately, what Ella has going against her is that she's L-A-Z-Y. She can do most things she needs to do with little discomfort, and resents putting in effort. Not sure what I can do about this kind of thing except make sure she does what she needs to do, and push her to where she's expending some effort but not to where she positively resents the amount of work.

Today's can't-put-down story was one of those Rainbow Fairy books I hate. But I'll take it, with pleasure.