Books Create Lasting Memories

When my girls were little, I made it a point to make books and reading a big part of their lives. We had TONS of books in the house and read to them often, and I'm proud to say my daughters are both still big readers. Seeing their eyes widen with excitement when discussing a favorite book or a great new find makes me excited for them, too.

I was contemplating this as I cleaned out an old USB drive and found a children's book I had been working on, A Tale of Two Sisters, that was based on K & N (I think with the 20 days of InDesign that I have left, I may work on printing it for them as a gift), and that jostled up an old memory of their favorite books growing up.

For K, it was The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss. This child was completely obsessed with the book and made us read it to her multiple times throughout the day. My favorite story to tell is that once, I tried to skip over a few of the pages because I was so sick of reading it, and with her limited motor skills K reached over and turned the page back to what I had skipped and smacked at the book. She was basically saying, as only a seven-month-old can say, "Bitch I ain't stupid! You skipped this page with the clown!" It's safe to say we all had that book memorized! She eventually outgrew The Foot Book, but for almost a year it was all she wanted.

For N, her obsession in a particular book manifested itself when she was a toddler and could speak a little bit; that's when she fell in love with Spike & Tonya Lee's Please, Baby, Please. This reading experience was much better than I had with the The Foot Book, however, because N only sat still for one story at a time before wandering off to stare at whatever shiny thing caught her attention. But I have to say, I'll always remember how she cackled at the baby's naked butt in the story during the bath time scene and would yell out "PEAS BABY PEAS!" as she tried to read along.

Experiences like this remind me of a couple of things: 1- motherhood sucked a lot of the time, but the sweet moments were super sweet, and 2- good books and the stories they contain stay with you forever. This is what I'd like my stories to do.

This is why I write.

*smooches...hoping one of my tales will be your favorite*
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but I suppose they'd have to get published first, huh?