Reading Rainbow

Tomorrow I'm a lady of leisure. Spa day. I've been looking forward to this for a month. I got a gift certificate for a day at the spa for Valentine's Day and the earliest I could book a Sunday was tomorrow. I'm going to be rubbed, scrubbed and polished. Bliss.

The Dude and I went out on a "date" last night for Indian food and Shutter Island. The movie was pretty damn nifty. Not scary, but psychologically thrilling and the plot and character development was really good.

Between dinner and the movie, we went to Chapter's to browse children's books for a 3-year-old whose birthday is tomorrow. This little girl has a crush on the Dude and wanted to invite him to her birthday party. How can you say no to that? Well, you can't, and we discussed what sort of present to get her.

We settled on a book or two, because you can't go wrong with books for any child ever. I really believe this. Kids can have too many toys or clothes (though some don't have enough, but this child happily doesn't have that problem), but no kid on Earth can ever suffer from having too many books. There just is no such thing.

We perused the kids section of the bookstore and lingered over our childhood favourites. And unaccountably while reading The Giving Tree and The Velveteen Rabbit my eyes welled with tears. Mostly from happy memories of being read to, but also because of the genuine quality of feeling behind the stories.

And I felt the old tug from my uterus aching to have children to read to. And I took stock of all the books I'd read as a kid and had happy thoughts that someday when I become pregnant, my first trip will not be to the doctor, but to a children's bookstore.

I plan on giving my cousin's daughter Goodnight Moon for her first birthday, which is coming up Easter weekend. You just can't go wrong with books. The Dude settled on a collection of Little Mr and Little Miss books. Another classic selection.

Books I will read to my children:
Goodnight Moon
The Giving Tree
The Velveteen Rabbit
The Little Prince
The Bearnstein Bears
The Little Mr and Little Miss books
Where The Wild Things Are
Beatrix Potter
The Little House books
Curious George
Madeline
Robert Munch