The weekend is upon us! For the childless this could bring…well, any number of possibilities. The sky is limit if you don’t have children. You might go see a movie. Go to dinner. Go for a relaxing twilight walk. Sip spritzers starting at 2pm (are spritzers permissible before Memorial Day, asks the woman in white pants.). You could travel to India and back in a weekend – I don’t know why you’d want to, but the point is that you could! You could be dangerous and reckless and drive motorcycles and throw knives and swear endlessly.
If you do have kids then your nighttime routine becomes more pedestrian. Knife throwing may be involved but you’re likely an unwitting target. Movies will be watched On Demand after children retreat. Dinner will be eaten standing by the sink as you lick remnants from their plates before placing in the dishwasher. Twilight walks occur only if a child slips out the front door undetected. And, in that case, I think ‘manhunt’ is what the local authorities call it.
Or you could do what my husband and I do on weekend nights, when we are bound to the house and relegated to near noiseless activities after the children fall asleep.
We read.
I know, weird, right? Books. With paper pages. That you have to turn – not scroll – from right to left.
But, get this, we don’t just read. I actually read. He listens. I read books aloud. I’ve already been ridiculed and maligned by coworkers and friends for this ‘bizarre’ activity. I defend myself by saying it’s strangely satisfying. And since I’ve got no patience or ability for crossword puzzles and Apples to Apples fails to be fun with one other person, it’s changed our weekend dynamic. And, as a person who whiled away much of my childhood with Ramona and Beatrice and the Babysitters Club, I love that I’m able to tell a room full of people at the once-a-year cocktail party I attend that I have in fact read A book recently.
Here are the other advantages:
If you’re a mom, you’re already reading aloud nightly. This is your chance to read something above a Pre-K reading level. And without saying “Goodnight” to everything in the room…If you’re a blogger, you’re accustomed to hearing the sound of your voice editing your posts before they go ‘live’. You are soothed by your own voice…Unlike watching a movie, you’re in total control of the ‘pause’ function to get food, go to the bathroom, or talk spontaneously about the annoying thing that happened at work…If playing games as irritating as Sodoku can stave off dementia, then I insist that reading aloud can, as well. But just in case I’m wrong, you might want to keep doing the crosswords.
And the hands-down best thing about reading aloud to your mate:
It is the only time they will listen to what you are saying.
There are some disadvantages:
Choosing a book to commit to is chief among problems. We read the Twilight series because of the vampire-love compromise. But if G had carte blanche to choose our books, I’d be reading anything by Dan Brown and the guy that writes those spy movies Harrison Ford stars in…Eroding your voice from so much overuse that you begin to sound like Kathleen Turner. And not in Romancing the Stone but in Marley & Me…The only thing worse than watching sexually explicit scenes with your partner is READING THEM ALOUD. I’d recommend skipping The Lovely Bones as the criminal rape of young girl is best read privately. Or not at all…Incessantly being faulted for failing to ‘bring the book’ on car trips as short as the local market. We usually have our hands full with children while our husbands honk the horn and wave their arms wildly in the air…The reader never can match the listener’s level of Zen since the second we start to relax, we’re told to stop mumbling…Noticing that your husband seems to be focusing on his Blackberry instead of your words. This is where you have to insert scenes that should never come up in context. For example, “As Margaret leaned in for a kiss…she shouted, ‘Beware of the flying blood-sucking Tom Cruise!!!” If they don’t react or mutter, ‘Hmmm….interesting…Tom Cruise,” they’ve stopped listening.
The worst thing about reading aloud to your guy is:
Realizing you’ve been reading aloud to a person who has been asleep for the last 45 minutes.
You know what? On second thought, maybe you should just pop in a DVD. Reading may be overrated. Everyone knows it’s crosswords that stave off dementia.
Ha! He doesn’t really fall asleep, does he? The nerve!!! Yes, The Lovely Bones is an “alone read” so you can cry into your pillow. I think this is a cute thing to do!
They did this in the movie “The Jane Austen Book Club.” Pretty cool, but I read trash romance novels and my husband reads foreign espionage books. I don’t think this would work for us.
I’ll never forget when you told me you read the Twilight books to G in bed. I thought that was the sweetest thing ever. I love this idea!
That’s really sweet. I was thinking today, for all the crap I talk about my husband, it’s really in my ability to acknowledge all his shit and not want to actually kill him that our love exists. It’s that same deep love that allows me to note the poop on my hand after a diaper change or snot being rubbed into my jeans and continue on as though nothing is amiss without commencing in a angry, grossed out anxiety attack.
That said, he would never listen to me read because upon the suggestion I’m always met with the protest that he would never possibly be able to pay attention and listen.
This is so romantic! My hubby always wants me to be reading the books he reads, but I have such little free time, and I almost always choose to paint over reading, so maybe I’ll start having him read to me while I paint!
Loved this.
If started reading to my mate he’d just get up and leave the room.
I LOVE when my husband reads to me! I think that it is so relaxing and intimate. Except I will fall asleep. Which honestly is okay by my husband since he’s a morning person and I’m a night person. He’s like: FINALLY I CAN GO TO SLEEP!
Nice idea, but since my husbands simply adores philosophy and reads books on law for fun (yes, my husband is a wee bit weird, I know, I know) and I am also and avid reader, but prefer such a mondaine thing as a novel or a good history book (latest : a book on the love life of Louis XIV, yup I am a weirdo too, although I do have a master in History so there) I don’t really think it would work out for us.
Oh, I think that is like the sweetest thing ever. I actually love the idea but if I ever suggested it to my husband I think he would ask me if I was serious. Sometimes I tell him we should just sit and stare into each other’s eyes like Sting and Trudie do, but he just laughs.
I love this idea so much, it’s actually really intimate.
Sadie at heyMamas
There is ONE book that I keep meaning to read to my husband, simply because it is very special to me and he keeps not reading it on his own. Also because my own sister read it aloud to me for the first time, even though I was way past the being-read-aloud-to age. It is also short enough not to absolutely kill my voice.
“The Thirteen Clocks” by James Thurber. Only reading aloud can truly do it justice.
Also, Apples to Apples NEVER fails to be fun. You can each submit an answer simultaneously and then decide together which one wins (or paper-scissors-rock for the win if you absolutely cannot agree). The argumentative defense of your own answers is part of the fun!