Wednesday, December 2, 2009
6:35 PM
The Three Little Kittens
My beloved Betsy books were my hands-down favorite childhood books. That's a given. Nonetheless, there were a few more books that I dearly loved and remember fondly. This is one of them. Out of all the books in our 2nd grade classroom library, this was my very favorite. The mother cat was actually kind of a creep so I'm not sure why I enjoyed reading this story but I really did and I must have checked it out 20 or 30 times. I wish I had known it was still around so I could have gotten a copy for our children when they were smaller. I figured it was long gone.
The book I would love to find, is the first book Bernie used to teach me to read. I was really little so I don't remember the name of the book. I wish that I did. (Do you, Bernie?)
That reminds me of one of my most treasured brother/sister memories. One night, when I was about 4 or so, Bernie surprised me by showing me a 1st grade reader that he had borrowed from WG. He had borrowed it not for himself, but for me because he deicded he wanted to try to teach me to read. So I sat there in the living room on his lap for an hour or more while he patiently, and sweetly worked to teach me to recognize some vowel sounds and words. Because i was so excited to be working with my big brother, whom I adored, I learned really quickly and that made him as happy as it made me. He paraded me into my mom's room where she was piddling or sewing or something, so she could see all that I had learned in only one lesson. He and I were so excited and proud of ourselves!
Bernie never gave me reading lessons again after that night. He, too, was just a little kid so I'm sure that like all little kids, his attention span wasn't refined so much that he would remember to be excited about teaching me again the next night. lol But I've never, ever forgotten that one sweet night of spending time and working toward a common goal with my big brother. Those rare times when he found a way to enjoy having a little sister meant the world to me. At the age of 4, I thought he was the coolest, smartest, most fascinating big brother in the world. I wasn't wrong.