Day 9: BOO-HA

Day 9 of "30 Days of Farm Kid Stories"


Boo.  It was one of G’s first words.  Right after “Bah Bah Bah” and “Momma."  (Sorry,  Dadda)

“Boo” referring to “Moo” referring to “Cow."    G was Boo crazy.   He loved cows at the early age of 8 months.  He still loves them Boos, although now he can pronounce them correctly (most of the time.) 

Today’s farm story features a cow who struggles with words.

 The Cow That Went Oink by Bernard Most tells the story of a cow that is sad because he is not like other animals.  He is made fun of and hears a pasture full of “MOO-HA’s” from fellow cattle. 

The author emphasizes cow’s words in purple conversation bubbles.  Whether it is an “OINK” or a “MOINK” it’s in purple which helps the reader navigate the barnyard squawk.  

Zigzag squiggle lines represent rows of crops, heads of wheat and leaves on trees.  I chuckle when cow meets a pig who says “Moo”, especially when cow and pig help each other with vocabulary. 

This book emphasizes it’s ok to be different. It’s an advantage many times. 

And it’s a keeper.  This book labels more than a dozen animals and the associated noises they make.  G and I will practice our “Bow-Wow-Ha’s” and “Hee-Haw-Ha’s” tonight. 

What is your little one’s favorite animal noise? 

Lauren

My Library List:

Preview Day: 30 Days of Farm Kid Stories
Day 1: One Moment
Day 2:  Perfect Pizza
Day 3:  Our Heartland
Day 4: Pasta Fistful
Day 5: One Fast Grower
Day 6: Farmer Seuss
Day 7: Just One Cookie?
Day 8:  Frowns Turn into Smiles

Our blogging host Holly Spangler writes  “30 Days on a Prairie Farm” this month on her blog: My Generation.  

It’s a group party, of sorts!  Please join fellow bloggers as they tell their agricultural stories:

Beyer Beware: 30 Days, 30 Things You Never Knew About Food
Black Ink: Beef’s a Trip – 30 Days from Gate to Plate
Confessions of a Farm Wife: Life on Our Farm
Go Beyond the Barn: 30 Days of Farm Life Blessings
Kelly McCormick Photography: 30 Days of Thankfulness
Le Jardin da ma Vie: 30 Reasons Why I Love Being a Farmer’s Wife
Pinke Post: 30 Days of North Dakota November
Rural Route 2: 30 Days of the Not-So-Glamorous Life of This Farm Wife

Our party has expanded! Please be sure to also check out the below writers:

Touching Families: 30 Days of a Town Girl Touched by the Farming Life
This Land, This Life, This Farmer's Wife: 30 Days of Thankfulness on a Family Farm
Farmgirldays: 30 Days of Farm Kids Trapped in the City
My Cows and Pigs: 30 Days of "What's that?"
Dennis Olmstead: 30 Days in a Row
White House on the Prairie: 30 Days, 30 Posts
A Colorful Adventure: 30 Days of JP

30 Days of Farm Kid Stories

Please join me this November for my series called:  30 days of “Farm Kid Stories.”  That’s right.  One post each day about my chosen topic: Farm kid stories.  A challenge for me… for sure.  I love deadlines.

Please also join Prairie Farmer’s Holly Spangler for her 30 day series of “Agricultural Something.”  I can’t wait to read what her subject will be this year.  For the past two years, Holly has picked a farm-related topic and wrote about it every day for the month of November.  This year she extends a warm invite to other bloggers.

And, I’m in this year.

Why do I blog?

• I feel like a momma rock star when I read to my son, G.   
• I record memories when I write about our adventures in reading.
• Finding the “funny” in parenting puts life into perspective.

Farm families could fill bookshelves full of agricultural stories.  It’s a library membership I would want. Please stop by my blog (often) this month and read my farm kid story of the day.

Lauren   

P.S. I send a big Thank You to my county farm bureau office and local libraries who let me borrow books to review.  30 books to be exact.


My Library List:
Preview Day: 30 Days of Farm Kid Stories
Day 1: One Moment
Day 2: Perfect Pizza
Day 3: Our Heartland
Day 4: Pasta Fistful
Day 5: One Fast Grower
Day 6: Farmer Seuss
Day 7: Just One Cookie?
Day 8: Frowns Turn into Smiles
Day 9: BOO-HA
Day 10: Big Red Barn
Day 11: Magic with Vegetables
Day 12: Call to Action
Day 13: BOOM
Day 14: Ponies and Cowboys
Day 15: Value to our Trees
Day 16: Tractor Time
Day 17: Wishing for a Washing
Day 18: United Tweets
Day 19: Popcorn Pops
Day 20: Busy Places
Day 21: Peas Please
Day 22: Thankful






Our blogging host Holly Spangler writes  “30 Days on a Prairie Farm” this month on her blog: My Generation.  

It’s a group party, of sorts!  Please join fellow bloggers as they tell their agricultural stories:

Beyer Beware: 30 Days, 30 Things You Never Knew About Food
Black Ink: Beef’s a Trip – 30 Days from Gate to Plate
Confessions of a Farm Wife: Life on Our Farm
Go Beyond the Barn: 30 Days of Farm Life Blessings
Kelly McCormick Photography: 30 Days of Thankfulness
Le Jardin da ma Vie: 30 Reasons Why I Love Being a Farmer’s Wife
Pinke Post: 30 Days of North Dakota November
Rural Route 2: 30 Days of the Not-So-Glamorous Life of This Farm Wife

  

Hopping Through the Pages

We read backwards.  We skip from Page 1 to Page 14, back to 3.  Upside down.  In the bathtub.  Sometimes the book becomes a monster and “chomps”.  With a quick close of the cover, the book puffs air in faces.  (Guaranteed giggle-maker)    

My favorite is snuggling together on the brown, leather couch arms encircling my little boy.

Daddy goes on sidebars when he reads to G.  Maybe the first page truly comes from the book in hand, and then they take off on some story tangent from outer space. 

Books are fun. 

Do pages get ripped and chewed?  --Oh yes.   Some of our beloved books look like half-eaten BLT’s.  I swear Sandra Boynton board books construct their pages with bacon-flavored goodness.

We keep most G books at eye level on the big book shelf.  We slip the “special” keep-me-nice books, up real high.  We don’t read every night, but often G grabs a book, walks over, and hands it to me as if to say “Hey, read this one to me.  I’ll take off and play across the room, but I’m still listening momma.”

Author Jill Stamm in her book Bright from the Start says, “The sheer amount of words spoken to a child from birth to three has a direct impact on later testable IQ.” 

Stamm goes on to write: “ Just as with being talked to, being read to helps “tune” individual bundles of neurons in a critical part of the growing brain, which will make your child better able to learn to speak and one day read himself.”  

Basically this book says read, and read often.  Easy enough.

Children's literacy advocate, Jen Robinson, posts a Ten Tips for Growing Bookworms on her blog.  I really like her #10.

I remember the first time I saw my little guy reach for a book.  Pick it up. Open. 

“BA BA… BA BA BA”, his sweet 6-month-old mouth yelps.  Just like momma reads out loud. This is the moment I knew all my early reading times, where G blank stared at me (Momma, why are you reading those funny words to me?) were totally worth it. 

Weeks later:   In Babies R Us, Grandma carting G through the baby-gate aisle, G excitedly points at the large Australian shepherd displayed on the packaging.  His first communication of knowing what a dog is. With help from many renditions of Doggies by Boynton, we know a doggie barks.  We know 10 different ways a doggie barks.  And at the end of the book, we know what all those doggies are barking at…. a cat!  (Sorry, plot spoiler)

Tonight after bath time, I might just grab one of those delicious Boynton books.. maybe Moo Baa La La La.  Those three pigs make this grown-up smile.

What books are you reading tonight in your home?

Lauren