Birthday Toys

The two best gift-givers I know are my friend Anne and my mom. They have a knack for picking out things that will be fun and a hit with me and/or my family. Last month I celebrated my birthday and my mom sent a box (or two) to me. When the second box was delivered to the house the boys were excited about what might be inside. I had told them that it was a birthday present for me, but still Ryan said, "Maybe there will be toys inside!" I told him that I didn't think so.


To my surprise and to their delight . . . their were toys inside! The first thing we saw when we opened it up was Horton. I started collecting Dr. Seuss books when I was in high school and my mom has added to my collection since then. Ryan was immediately drawn to Horton. In fact, this photo was originally going to be of "Hop on Pop" and Horton only, but Ryan said he wanted to sit by Horton for the picture.
There were also some Dr. Seuss board books inside which the boys grabbed up and started looking at. I had to leave to go to an overnight camp meeting that evening, and I was so pleased to hear that Brett had even read a few of the books to the boys while I was away.

We had recently read "Hop on Pop" and this gift inspired us to read "Horton Hatches The Egg" together. The boys thought it was very funny.

Another book that was included in my birthday box was Deep in the Swamp by Donna M. Bateman. It is a children's book about the animals in the Okefenokee Swamp, so it is very close to home. The boys enjoyed the story, the counting, and Todd especially enjoyed the more detailed descriptions of the animals in the back of the book after the story. I was so impressed with the book that I checked to see if our library had a copy. I was going to recommend it to them, but being the good library that it is, I wasn't too surprised to find out that they did carry it already.

While on the subject of books I'll mention another one that the boys and I have started reading together, Old Mother West Wind by Thornton W. Burgess. My grandmother read us these stories when we were younger. She gave me a copy of this book some time ago and I had never gotten around to reading them. It has more words per page compared with the books that I typically read to Todd and Ryan, and I wasn't sure how well they would sit through the book. I was pleasantly surprised by how much they enjoyed the stories. I was afraid that they might not understand how the wind could be a character in a story, but after we talked about it a little bit they picked up on that idea very quickly and thought it was funny. I have enjoyed reading the stories about the characters I remember from long ago: the Laughing Brook, the Smiling Pond, Grandfather Frog, Jerry Muskrat, Little Joe Otter, and even Peter Rabbit. We had recently read some of Beatrix Potter's Tales of Peter Rabbit and others, and Ryan was surprised to find Peter Rabbit in Old Mother West Wind's stories as well.

Thanks for the great presents, Mom. I appreciate that I was able to share so many of them with my family.