Learning the Alphabet

My mom has a voracious appetite for reading. The woman is always surrounded by books. I swear she buys them in bulk.

It was no different when we were growing up. For a while, I thought she had a printing press in our basement. Or she had sequestered Dr. Seuss in an abandoned warehouse until he turned over at least 3 copies of each of his works to her!

I feel for my mom. I especially feel for her affliction. Not that her reading habit causes her pain. Rather, the affliction that none of her sons took to her vocation (I really can't call it a hobby).

Don't get me wrong. I like reading. I even kept a favorite childhood book to pass on to my kids. But I just don't share that same passion for books.

While that passion may not be there, I really enjoyed having those books around when I was a kid.

So, our house is populated with kid's books. We have the Disney series, especially if it has a princess in the story. We have the Boxcar Kids series. Joe really likes the Michigan Thrillers books.

And, of course, Dr. Seuss. Joe and Alaina each have their own preferred story. But Norah doesn't seem to take a liking to them. Not yet, at least.

That's okay. But we really want her to start learning the alphabet. So, Elisha went out to the store and bought Alphabet Flashcards. And she came up with a game for Norah to play with the Flashcards. The cards and the game are a hit, and Norah is doing wonderfully well learning her alphabet.

But, one night, while we were playing the Flashcard game, I became a little suspicious of the company that developed the cards. You see, each card has a series of pictures that represent the letter in the alphabet. The idea is not too dissimilar from Dr. Seuss' ABC Book (think: Aunt Annie's Alligator).

For the most part, the pictures and the messages are nondescript. Until we got to the letter "J".

But there my daughter was, clutching the card in her hand, when I first noticed it. The pictures, and the words, laid out in a perfect series...Jungle...Juice...Jug!

I started having flashbacks to my undergraduate days. My head started spinning. I started to ask myself, "How do I get that card away from her? How do I protect my innocent little daughter?"

Maybe there's an opportunity here to slip in some of my childhood books and stories. Maybe I can preserve her childhood, at least for a moment.

I started to get excited. I almost went in to a panic. Then I remembered the stories from my childhood.

"There's a Wocket in my Pocket"? Really? "Puff the Magic Dragon"? Seriously? Who am I fooling?

I left the room, laughing.

Later that night after the kids went to bed, I went to the kitchen, mixed up a batch of Jungle Juice, grabbed my iPod, and spent the rest of the night listening to the Stones.