Stop, Drop and Blog

I grew up in a sea of books. While my parents weren’t what you would call “well off” when I was a young child, they always made sure we had books. Lots and lots of books. They subscribed me to book clubs so that I always was sure to get new books. One of those book clubs was the Dr. Seuss book club. I learned to read with those books and ever since have been a fan of his work.

And today is his birthday! He’d be 105 today if he was still with us.

So today I wandered into BigBrother’s room where most of the paper-pages books are housed even though LittleBrother does just fine handling and turning the pages in those books. He has a shelf on his six shelf bookshelf that is mostly dedicated to Dr. Seuss. I say mostly because there are a few Shel Silverstein (another personal favorite) books on the one end. There’s room for them because you’ll find some Seuss books throughout our house. A current favorite, Snow, is in the living room in our “under end table makeshift bookshelf” spot. Some others are in the playroom. What can I say, we love to have books in every room.

I sat and looked at these books, remembering the process of learning to read. Remembering how I thought Octember was a real month. Remembering time spent with my own parents. As I opened a page, I found my real first, which I don’t go by except for legal purposes, and maiden name, which is no longer my last name, written in my mother’s quick handwriting. Nostalgia washed over me. What memories these books contain. I wondered then if my boys will make their own memories with these books. Will they some day, perhaps a March 2nd, sit in their child’s room and open the book and be forced to explain whose name that is written in their great-grandmother’s script? I get kind of weepy just thinking about it so I don’t do it all that often…

But, in this house, we do love the Seuss. As we’re starting to sound out words, I am finding that I turn to these books with regularity. Not all of them, of course, because Octember is an awfully strange word to sound out. But, still, there are some (Hop on Pop!) that BigBrother is finding humor and comfort in as we begin this process of learning to read.

All the same, today we will be breaking out some Dr. Seuss coloring pages and I do believe that we’ll make it through some Seuss favorites (Hop on Pop and There’s a Wocket in my Pocket) and perhaps The Cat in the Hat, just because. We don’t have any Dr. Seuss DVDs yet and I think we should remedy that soon… don’t you?