I have figured something out about parenting - even if it took me 5 whole years.

Once you get really, really tired of something. Once you reach some sort of personal "tipping point," your child or baby or toddler decides to let it naturally fade away. I find this a quite incredible thing. Remember how miserable you felt at the end of pregnancy? (Except for me, I was terrified to go into labor, and as it turned out, quite rightly so).

And so just when you were DONE with being very, very knocked up, the baby comes. When you cannot bear dealing with one more diaper or think about toting around a massively over-packed diaper bag, your little one "gets" the whole bathroom thing. It's like magic!! And this has happened more times than I can count in the 5 years since Flipper has been in my life. But there is one thing that is starting to make me feel more and more impatient, and so I am ready for her to "do it herself" except for the fact that she can't yet.

I am talking about reading. After 4-plus years of reading multiple stories every night, I can say, with a fair amount of guilt, that I am over it. And yes, I know that I shouldn't wish it away, that the day will come when I will miss that 30 or 45 minutes every night of reading out loud to her while she puts her head on my shoulder, rapt and silent, blah blah blah.

When I sit around and try to start calculating exactly how many stories a night/week/month/year I have read out loud I know that in my head a little death knell is sounding. Because right now I just can't take another minute of it. The reading, AND the guilt.

There is a little magical switch inside my head that goes from "decent parent" to "off" at exactly 8 p.m. every evening. Mostly because I am a morning person, up with the birds at 4:30 or 5 most mornings, and Flipper is a night owl, and comes alive anytime AFTER 8 p.m.

At that point, I just want to read my OWN book in peace and quiet, tucked in my nice big bed, propped up on pillows while the dogs slumber on the floor beside me. I do not want to read out loud at all. And yet she loves it, be it a book we have read a million times or a brand new one. She pats my arm to ask a question or make a comment, and her attention never wanders (unlike mine).

She could listen to a story for 10 hours without budging. I want her to spontaneously start reading, which I somehow think isn't going to happen. There are parents out there that LOVE reading out loud to their children, that seek out new books, put on the funny voices and generally have a ball.

How can they do this night after night, year after year? Even the fact that she loves it so much is no longer a huge motivator.

And this is why I feel so guilty: she loves it. She begs for it, and I do read to her, usually 2 to 3 books a night or one chapter from a Ramona book. I even try really hard not to cheat and skip entire paragraphs in order to get to the end of the chapter one minute faster. Reading aloud seems to be one of those non negotiables for the category "good, loving, involved parent" categories. Why is this? And can I renegotiate the terms of the categories? And if you want to come over and read to Flipper...I'll do all your laundry forever. Ironing too

Leigh appears every Monday on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Leigh at her blog Flipper and Me.