Reading on the iPad

Anyone who knows me, or who is around me for extended periods of time, know how much I love my grandson. Of course, Mamaw is a lover of books and reading, so the favorite gift is a new book. One of our favorite activities when Landon was just a baby was my sitting in a chair, holding him, and reading a book to him. Even though he couldn't comprehend, or maybe even actually see the pictures, I still read to him.

Now Landon loves books. He is nearly two, and he has been dragging books from his basket in his living room to Papa to read to him. Sometimes I have the opportunity, but he tends to like Papa's sound effects and the way Papa's lap has spots for him to cuddle in.

Over the Thanksgiving time off, I was searching for new free apps for my iPad and discovered a free book---Toy Story! It is so cool...even for me. There is music. There are bright colors. An unseen voice reads along with the text, which is highlighted to follow the voice. I also found a Christmas story that has a calendar that updates the days, hours, and minutes to Christmas, along with an animated story that tells about Santa's arrival.

Yesterday afternoon I took my iPad from my bag (actually a very large purse), and immediately Landon yelled "Birds! Birds!" because he likes to play Angry Birds with his Uncle Matt. He isn't coordinated enough to use his pointer finger to fling the birds and bombs and other things through the air, but he enjoys touching the screen and trying.

When he crawled up into my lap to play "Birds," I opened instead Toy Story. Oh my. What a reaction! He loved it. He was yelling BUZZ and WOODY all the way through. We read it not once, but twice. Then he gently carried my iPad to Papa, and they sat on the couch and read it again.

I have been thinking about my grandmother often through the holiday weekend, as I always do on Thanksgiving. I commented to my husband on Thanksgiving morning that she would have been amazed that I was checking my laptop for Alton Brown's turkey recipe from the Food Network's website (which is a very good recipe, by the way). We have come a long way from the recipe cards or making things from scratch, adding ingredients until the taste is just right. But Grandma would have never thought about sitting with me or my sister or my cousin on the couch and reading a book on an iPad. What we are taking for granted would have shocked her. It still shocks my mother that she could listen to music, any kind of music, through Pandora on my iPad.

The times...they are a'changin' that's for sure!