magic
This week it feels like the world is, quite literally, falling apart. Lybia has descended into civil war, Wisconsin Republicans have stomped upon democracy in the face of the largest public uprising in recent memory, and Japan...oh, Japan. My heart breaks for you.
I honestly think that the only thing keeping me going this week is my children. They are simply too young to understand the situation downtown, though I bring them to demonstrations anyway. (Daniel, though, has recently become of aware of global climate change and will randomly bring up the subject of penguins and polar bears and how they are dying because the ice they need is melting, which is not such an uplifting topic, but at least he knows that polar bears and penguins do not, in fact, live in the same hemisphere...) Their innocence keeps me grounded.
A few nights this week I've stayed up late reading to Daniel. You see, we've just discovered the Magic Tree House books, and he is enthralled with them. We curl up on the couch under a soft, warm blanket and he leans over and looks at the pictures as I read through each short chapter, stopping every once in a while to explain what's going on. The stories are rather formulaic and straightforward, but delightfully imaginative. Sometimes he makes it to the end, and sometimes he falls asleep leaning on my ribcage before I get to the end. Daniel is so taken with the Magic Tree House books that I've checked the first 19 of them out from the library (stocking up, you know!) He stacks them up in order and looks at the covers and stares at the pictures and asks me to read to him first thing in the morning.
I love that my kids can get lost in stories already, even though they're not reading on their own yet. We've read so much Winnie the Pooh that I think Anya believes Tigger is real. In fact, we recently discovered that our back yard is the perfect setting for Winnie the Pooh. There is a huge, old maple tree that could be Pooh's house, a half dozen spruce trees much like the Six Pine Trees where Piglet lives, a sandbox that would serve nicely as the Sandy Place Kanga and Roo call home, and we figure Eeyore's Gloomy Place is probably near the compost. Christopher Robin likely has the prime real estate: the large plastic hand-me-down climber. We haven't quite decided where Rabbit's hole or Owl's house are, but we'll figure it out I'm sure.
Sometimes getting lost in a good story is just what you need.
I honestly think that the only thing keeping me going this week is my children. They are simply too young to understand the situation downtown, though I bring them to demonstrations anyway. (Daniel, though, has recently become of aware of global climate change and will randomly bring up the subject of penguins and polar bears and how they are dying because the ice they need is melting, which is not such an uplifting topic, but at least he knows that polar bears and penguins do not, in fact, live in the same hemisphere...) Their innocence keeps me grounded.
A few nights this week I've stayed up late reading to Daniel. You see, we've just discovered the Magic Tree House books, and he is enthralled with them. We curl up on the couch under a soft, warm blanket and he leans over and looks at the pictures as I read through each short chapter, stopping every once in a while to explain what's going on. The stories are rather formulaic and straightforward, but delightfully imaginative. Sometimes he makes it to the end, and sometimes he falls asleep leaning on my ribcage before I get to the end. Daniel is so taken with the Magic Tree House books that I've checked the first 19 of them out from the library (stocking up, you know!) He stacks them up in order and looks at the covers and stares at the pictures and asks me to read to him first thing in the morning.
I love that my kids can get lost in stories already, even though they're not reading on their own yet. We've read so much Winnie the Pooh that I think Anya believes Tigger is real. In fact, we recently discovered that our back yard is the perfect setting for Winnie the Pooh. There is a huge, old maple tree that could be Pooh's house, a half dozen spruce trees much like the Six Pine Trees where Piglet lives, a sandbox that would serve nicely as the Sandy Place Kanga and Roo call home, and we figure Eeyore's Gloomy Place is probably near the compost. Christopher Robin likely has the prime real estate: the large plastic hand-me-down climber. We haven't quite decided where Rabbit's hole or Owl's house are, but we'll figure it out I'm sure.
Sometimes getting lost in a good story is just what you need.
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