Today I gave our son Theo’s big Wildlife Explorer binder to the school library. Originally, he had looked through a copy of this binder in the library and wanted one of his own. I found an inexpensive one online and ordered it for him. He looked at it once or twice but since then it has been sitting around taking up space.

We have a few other animal atlases and books, all bought in the hope that Theo would want to spend time sitting reading about animals. However, I have been learning to accept that just because he has the books in his room doesn’t mean he’ll read them, and maybe instead of buying so many, we can use the library and the internet. I don’t have to stuff his shelves full of books. Today I asked Theo if we could donate it to the library so that they’d have an extra copy, and he agreed. So off went the binder. And his book shelves are looking much less cluttered now. There’s even room on one shelf for the bowl his new Siamese fighting fish, a “Betta Fish” – a birthday present from a friend. It’s such a beautiful fish. It would be great to know more about them. Maybe I should buy him a book about fish? Or maybe not….