Book Mania

I have a theory (you'll hear me say this often, usually immediately proceeding something insanely asinine, but no matter) that beyond basic necessary survival instincts, there are a few

other universal character traits that are common to all babies from birth:

1. The ability to love and the desire to be loved.
2. Rhythm. I haven't met a baby yet who didn't love a good tune. Any kind of tune. Babies aren't nearly as discriminatory about music genres as us crotchety older folks are. And babies can rock in rhythm to anything. The faster the music plays, the faster the baby rocks. Sometimes mine rock so hard they tip over, but that helps them learn to crawl – and is entirely irrelevant.
3. Book Mania.

Long preceding the formation of so many of my own largely unfounded and significantly under-researched theories, young Cereal Mom, as a college Psychology major, was made privy to the often questionably founded, significantly over-researched theories of many long-winded Psychologists who came before me. One such theory that crossed my desk during this particular portion of my edification was the theory that heredity may predispose a person to alcoholism. I may have a theory of my own regarding this theory, but fortunately that theory would, of course, be significantly under-researched and completely beside the point - Said point being that, according to Book Mania Theory (oh yes, I used caps; now it's official) universal heredity with regard to the formation of character traits predisposes all children to the development of book mania.

Symptoms of early stage book mania may include, but are not limited to:

• an unceasing desire to eat, flip the pages of, and/or stare intently at the pictures in books, magazines, or other printed materials for hours on end
• requesting repeated readings of a favorite or new or conveniently located piece of reading material from a parent, guardian, or random person who may be unknown to the child but who bears even the vaguest resemblance to someone who is known to be literate
• attributing human characteristics to books; for example, a child may feel the desire to be close to his or her books even while he or she is asleep, watching television, eating, or otherwise engaged (i.e. in the bathroom); he or she may also feel a sense of loss when an unexpected separation from a beloved book occurs such as when a book has been so beloved that it has basically been rebound in some combination of super glue, masking, packing, and scotch tape, until one day it inexplicably disappears leaving a helpless mom with not a clue as to its possible whereabouts.... I said Mom has no idea where it could have gone... She's looked everywhere and yet the book is nowhere to be found... Can we just drop it already?... Oh what's that? No one said anything? Well, nevermind then. Moving on.

The most popular treatment for book mania is parental apathy, but treatment is not recommended and may be detrimental to a child's future well-being.

My children have all had extremely advanced cases of book mania for as long as I can remember. Baby Corinne is still in Stage 1: The book as geometric chew toy, but we expect somewhat rapid advancement within the next 2-3 years. Logan and Julianne give no indication of entering Stage 5: Recognizing relatively poor literature, anytime soon, but they can also tell the gold from the graphite, so to speak.