There are so many times I have a blog entry running through my mind and then I get busy or I over edit and then it just fizzles away like a bad bottle of champagne. Right now I have an experience that I am just going to write about while I am waiting for our pasta to boil. And please excuse any typos, my dearest daughter broke my glasses this morning and it will be at least a week before I get new ones.
So I am very sick of our current library. Kids can hear the same books over and over but parents are often on the verge of slitting our wrists before reading a particular story one more time. Tonight was one of those nights and I rummaged around for a gift my mother had given me for my first baby shower, that would be my pregnancy with Michael. It's an awesome comprehensive storybook, you want it, you got it. From rhymes, to fairy tales, to stories we thought Disney invented but they actually plagirized. The copyright is 1955, I was born in 1970 so it's obviously been reprinted but trust me it's not edited!
For our bedtime this evening I read the unabridged version of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. There is blood, there is death, there is organs, there is compassion, there is love and there is justice. Jake was oblivious, Bekah swooped in and out of the story but Michael was riveted. Goodnight Moon no longer holds the same charm when you are almost 4 years old. My oldest gripped my arm and leaned against me from the start and I have nothing but praise for The Brothers Grimm in the middle of the story they do state, "...and the seven dwarves told Snow White not to open the door for anyone........", a perfect opportunity to remind Michael why us parents freak out when he opens the front door without permission. But we all know that Snow White did not heed the little people's warning and just before she sunk her teeth into the poisoned apple Michael dove under the covers. As a storyteller there can be no better reaction!
I reassured Michael that Snow White will be just fine. And she was. If you haven't read the original in awhile; in their grief the dwarves encase her in a glass coffin, a hot prince comes cruising along on his horse falls madly in love with a comatose Snow White, and as he lifts the glass to kiss her the chunk of poisoned apple falls from her blood red lips and she awakes. The hottie proposes and they plan a righteous wedding. The evil step-mother is a guest to this wedding but does not realize who the bride is and as she primps for the nuptials she consults her magic mirror on "....who is the fairest?" The mirror does not hold back and tells her that Snow White, as the bride, is the fairest. The evil step-mother flies into a rage, breaks the mirror and dies. It does not say how she dies though. Does the shards of mirror nick a major artery? I am assuming it was not made of safety glass.
I am just so excited that I got to read this story tonight and received such a positive reaction. This is a part of motherhood I have really looked forward to. The first moment you find out you are pregnant you have so many perfect scenarios running through your head. All the amazing things you want to share with your children that you either did or did not experience in your own childhood. I have always been an avid reader and the library I have to share with my children is ever-growing. I remember buying a board book version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for Julian LaCount as a souvenier. Rebecca expressed to me that it was a rather generous souvenier but really I was just jealous that she had a child old enough to enjoy at least a picture version of the first in a series of 7 books that I have read all the way through twice.
This is such an obsession of mine that even while hiking through the black hills of South Dakota with Erik, I was daydreaming about reading the whole Little House On The Prairie series to my children, and we weren't even married yet.
When storytime was over this evening and we tucked the kids into bed, they wanted to get their hands on this thick hardcover book, but I tucked it away in my closet for future readings. It already has loose pages and scribblings from when I was left alone as a child with a ballpoint pen. My mother's inscription is written on top of these early musings of mine, she wrote, "I used to read to your mommy from this book. Love Grandma Louise.".
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