HOW DO YOU SNUGGLE WITH AN E-BOOK?

OK -- I know I am in my 60's and I know that I did not grow up surrounded by the edge of electronics guiding my every step and purchase, but is there anything more satisfying than a child snuggled up with a good book?  And I mean the real paper kind with pages to turn, pictures to sink into, parts that pop-up, and places to scratch and sniff?

And I know I am in my 60's (and so have more time for this) , but for me what's even better than a child snuggled with a book,  is when that child is snuggled with an adult to share it with!  Can an electronic book ask the child, "What do you think is going to happen next"?  Can it giggle along with the child at the crazy characters and funny pictures?  Does it build the same level of confidence and creativity in that child as when they hear that adult they love pretend to be the character in the story?   I am not wondering about this today; I am flat out thinking there is just NO way e-books can compare to paper books when it comes to kid lit!

Don't get me wrong, many of my friends love their e-readers.  My 97 year old Mom can still enjoy reading because her e-reader makes the font large enough that her eyes don't tire ... and I love that.  But when it comes to kids and books, I say it's time we surround them with the paper kind,  snuggle with them and giggle, and lift the flaps, and scratch and sniff, and wonder together what will happen next.

I have baby showers and kid birthdays coming up ..... I am off to the book store...my local independent one.

NEXT TIME I GET SCARED .....

At a mother's day gathering last week, a friend told a story that I want to remember the next time I get really scared or start to head toward catastrophe mode.

Last January her relatives were aboard that ill-fated Italian cruise ship that ran aground and sank off the Tuscan coast.  When ship personnel made an announcement for passengers to return to or stay in their cabins, the dad instead hustled his daughters into life jackets and got them to the side of the ship where they each climbed down a very long rope ladder into a lifeboat below.  While descending, the six year old's loose tooth came out.  She held it in her mouth while she worked herself down the seventy feet of swaying rope ladder.

I love her response when the adults in her life learned of this and asked her about it ..... I wanted the tooth fairy to come and visit me!


For some of us it takes a good deal of effort to focus on the good and exciting things that surround us or are coming our way on an average day. But in the face of that much fear and chaos?

How did she keep her focus on something so delightful as a magical night-time visitor?  I wonder.
And I hope that Tooth Fairy was generous!

HAPPY (?) BIRTHDAY

The birthday celebration had all the happy trappings .... delicious food, a pretty cake, chocolate icing, gifts, loved ones, a word-learning toddler repeating "Happy .... Happy .... Happy .... Happy" in a sing-songy voice from his chocolate covered mouth and a five year old who had proudly placed each pink candle in her mom's cake before they were lit!

Then a birthday toast to the beautiful mother of these children.  Eyes glistened with emotion for a moment.  Then the quiet was broken by the ever observant five year old saying, "I didn't know a birthday was like this."

How do you explain that Happy has layers,  just like the birthday cake?

 I wonder.