Dr. Suess…. Who Knew?

A cat in a hat, a fish in a dish, Thing 1 and Thing 2…. WHO KNEW, Dr. Suess was so smart about people and places and Life’s little races? When Josh and Christian were small I read all of the Dr. Suess books to them over and over. They were not particularly fond of Green Eggs and Ham but their all time favorite was The Cat in the Hat. I read that to them so much I could read the page without looking at the words in some sections. Dr. Suess was so good at what he wrote that you would speed up reading in excitement in some areas and he had you talking in funny voices in others. And how many times did we all watch The Grinch That Stole Christmas with our kids??? Way before Jim Carey made The Grinch cool in his portrayal of the Christmas villain, the grown ups found it just as entertaining as their kids. We would pretend not to find it just as interesting each year, but you better believe we didn’t forget to tell them what night the week before Christmas it came on and odds are we sat down and watched it with them…. again. 🙂

It wasn’t until I started this website that I gained a great admiration for Dr. Suess and A.A. Milne. These men who wrote such timeless stories and snuck in powerful phrases that we passed on to our children time and time again without realizing it. I have quoted Milne many times in my posts. He so simply expressed the wonder and value of true friendship to young children that I think as a young mother I overlooked the powerful emotions packed into those simple words. But our children as toddlers and young pre-schoolers, when they were purest of heart felt those words and understood them much better than the adults did. Looking back, I remember Christian had an imaginary friend named Jake. Jake ate at the table with us, he rode in the car with us and Christian would be quick to point out if we were on the verge of sitting on Jake. He would quickly say “You can’t sit there!! Jake is sitting there!” Or if he didn’t act quick enough “Get up, get up!! You are sitting on Jake!!” Christian was only four or five years old but he was a great friend to Jake. For about a year Jake played the role of Piglet to Christian’s version of Winnie the Pooh. And then a terrible thing happened…. Christian began to grow up. And like all children who give up childish things and their hearts become not as pure as the very young, Jake was lost and not found again except here and there when we would kid Christian about his imaginary friend. Christian would just grin and turn a little red and Say “Ya’ll need to leave Jake alone.” Pooh being more eloquent then Christian and being eternally pure of heart would have expressed it a little differently…..

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together,

keep me in your heart,

I’ll stay there forever.”

But remember I did say that Josh and Christian’s favorite book was The Cat in the Hat. I think Christian may have related a little too much to the Cat in the Hat. I would definitely say his middle and high school years resembled Thing 1 and Thing 2….. total chaos but a lot of fun along the way. And Christian’s motto could most definitely have been fashioned after these words of wisdom from Dr. Suess….