Bedtime Stories

A few weeks ago, I bought a book for Bailey that I remember from my childhood, Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I wasn't too sure if he was ready for it or not but he has been asking to read it several nights in a row as a bedtime story. The book contains lots of poems and drawings. Here is Bailey's current favorite.

Hat

Teddy said it was a hat,

So I put it on.

Now Dad is saying

"Where the heck's

the toilet plunger gone?"

And this is Mom's current favorite

Colors

My skin is kind of sort of brownish

Pinkish yellowish white.

My eyes are greyish blueish green.

But I'm told they look orange in the night.

My hair is reddish blondish brown,

But it is silver when it's wet.

And all the colors I am inside

Have not been invented yet.

Reading Remains

My life has always been filled with books. As a matter of fact, right there in the pages of my pastel colored baby book snuggled in between the fact the I cried the first time I met Santa and the fact that someone gave me plastic pants is the fact that I loved to be read to; any book, anytime, anywhere.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, George And Martha: One Fine Day, Where The Wild Things Are, Tell Me A Trudy filled my head with technicolor dreams when I slept at night. Picture books turned into chapter books from Beverly Cleary and Judy Bloom and series like Sweet Valley High and Little House On The Prairie.

Even now, I read as often as I can and I make sure to read to the kids at least once a day. Goodnight Moon, Mother Goose, Hooray For Fish, books about counting and colors and the alphabet. Board books, cloth books, books with torn pages. Old favorites, passing favorites and ones yet unread.

Bailey and Sophie have their own entire book shelf devoted to little people books. Hubs has his mix of novels and comics (manga) spiced up with my cook books, parenting books and just for fun books. Books require a lot of space, something that we are already short on. Books are piled on top of books on top of more books and top of even more books; teetering like a Jenga tower. No more can come in until some go out.

Just can't bring myself to throw away a book. Even if I hated it, even if I never finished it or even if I never even started it. So, today was spent among old friends deciding which ones would stay and which ones would have to go to the local library for someone else to enjoy. For someone else's imagination to create technicolor dreams.