I recently gave the girls a copy of Shel Silverstein’s “A Light in the Attic“, which was one of my favorite collection of poems as a kid. In second grade, we memorized poem after poem to recite in front of the class.  To this day, I see the title of a poem, like “Bear in There” or   “Fancy Dive“, and instantly, I’m spitting out stanzas like I’m back in Mrs. Mahoney’s class.

This morning, while I was straightening up, Morgan was sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor with the book in her lap.  In between flipping the pages, she was ticking off a list of things that she wanted to see, places that she wanted to go, and things that she wanted me to buy for her.  Currently, tops on the list is a trip to Build-A-Bear Workshop.  I told her and Coever that I would take them there for their respective birthdays, hoping that would be the end of it. But of course, that is never the end of that.

“But Mom, I really, really, really, really want to go build my own bear,” Morgan implored.  She folded her hands together, bringing them up under her chin and doing her best Puss in Boots eyeball routine.  You know, this one. . .

 I again reminded her, “For your birthday,” and then told her to go back to reading the book.  “Why don’t you read me some poems that we can write about later ?” I suggested.  We’ve got a summer reading journal going, but that’s another post for another day.  I turned back to the bed where I was putting on some fresh sheets.  “How about,” I continued, “you pick out a few poems that you like.”

“Mmmkay,” she said.  Flip, flip, flip went the pages.  I couldn’t tell if she was looking for a particular poem that she’d read before or if she was just looking at illustrations that caught her eye.  Flip, flip, flip.  “Got one!” she said and began to read.

Morgan and Coever were treated to Chick-Fil-A yesterday as we were out running errands before the holiday week-end.  The Chick-Fil-A kids’ meal includes the chicken, some fries, a drink and usually an educational booklet of some kind.  Morgan received about book about animal habitats and Coever’s was about birds.  They enjoyed looking at the colorful pages, pointing out animals they recognized and every so often, Morgan would toss out a newly acquired factoid about animal homes.

“Coever!” she blurted out from the back seat, “Did you know that mice hibernate in the wintertime?”

“Wow!” said Coever, munching on some fries.

“Coever!” said Morgan, carefully turning a page of her book, “Did you know that termites live in colonies? Just like the pilgrims!”

And on it went over the course of the afternoon and into the evening.  These little books were such a hit, the girls were still paging through them this morning.  Morgan was sitting on her bed, scanning the back cover of her book.  There was an advertisement for several other books in the series, titles like marine life, safari animals and out space.

“Mom, what’s a saddle-lite?” Morgan asked, carefully sounding out the title of one of the books.  As basically as I could, because my knowledge of spaceflight is spotty at best. I mean, I’ve seen “Space Camp“, but that was the ’80s, afterall. In a nutshell, I was able to convey that a satellite was something sent up by the people at NASA (which was another whole discussion) to learn about the Earth, geography and something to do with global positioning, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Her response?

“Oh.”  Then she turned to Coever, who had just come into the room from brushing her teeth.

“Hey Coever,” Morgan said, holding up the book.  “This, right here, is a saddle-lite.”

 Coever plucked the book from her sister’s grasp to examine the photo, and without missing a beat asked,  “Well, where’s the happy light?”

Boy, those synapses are always firing.