He Knows Alot About That!

Today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday. When I taught preschool we used to have green eggs and ham for either breakfast or lunch. Many of the kids thought this was wonderful, but every single year there was at least one child who would not eat those green eggs!

I never much got into Dr. Seuss until Nick was learning to read and Nanny had the book “Hop on Pop”. He enjoyed having that book read to him, then it was the first one he read by himself. And he truly read it, instead of just reciting the words from memory. His journey to reading was on a bumpy road, one I shan’t travel down again to explain here, so when he read that book, I was ecstatic. I became an instant fan of Dr. S.! Jess also had regular access to that book when she was learning to read, and it was the first one for her to read alone, too.

On to preschool where we used Dr. Seuss to learn about rhyming and the beginning sounds of words. I often recommended his books to parents and took them along when I made home visits.

Now, Bradley has discovered “The Cat in the Hat” cartoon on PBS and he just loves “Cat”. I don’t think he really grasps what they’re talking about in the episodes, but he loves Martin Short’s voice (as The Cat) and the “thingamajigger”, and the music. One day a couple of weeks ago, we were sorting toys and rearranging things in the playroom when we found a little stuffed toy of The Cat. He was thrilled and carried it around all day, sleeping with it for nap, and taking it home with him that evening. Jess said he plays with it all the time at their house.

One thing he was frustrated with was that the hat didn’t come off the toy. In the cartoon, Cat takes off his hat and finds all sorts of interesting things inside. :o)  I knew Bradley needed his own Cat in the Hat hat, so on Monday I dug out my box of felt to make him one. There was a huge piece of nice red felt, but only scrap pieces of white, so those had to be patched together to make the stripes. I followed this easy tutorial and it took a couple of hours, just because I had to keep stopping and take care of Brad. If he hadn’t been here, my bet is it would have taken under an hour.

He knew what I was making and was happy to keep trying it on as I put it together. When it was finished, he was thrilled!

Yes, the living room is a mess in this photo – that’s what happens when I try to work on projects while Bradley is here. He trashes the place. Oh well, it cleans up. (And yes, that is a Barbie on the floor. He loves her. Don’t judge.)

When Greg got home, he made him try on the hat. Sorry, no photo was allowed. Greg didn’t love it as much as Brad did, but he’ll do anything for that boy. :o)

I’m happy to give tribute to the wise Dr. S. and his funny rhyming books, green eggs and ham, and The Cat in the Hat. They’ve entertained many a child in my life and that’s given me extremely good memories.