Big Plans

I'm going to get all philosophical today. Usually as deep as it gets around here is wondering if you swallow your gum if it really takes 7 years to reappear.

You know, the important questions of life.

But today there's something actually a little deeper on my mind. And here it is. Frightening, though it may be.

Everybody knows it's good to read to your kids. It helps them develop language. It helps them learn to read. It makes them smart. It helps them grow. It gives them the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Chickster loves books. He has some board books that he loves to drag out and play with. Some are "touch and feel" with lions, lizards, and the like. His favorite is the lizard "skin" because it's bumpy. And lime green.

I enjoy reading to Chickster. We have several Dr. Seuss books, a childhood staple. One of them I still have memorized from reading to my younger siblings about a zillion times. But there is a new book that has become a standard at our house.

Big Plans.

Husband found this book and bought it for Chickster. And we love it. All three of us.

It is about a little boy whose dreams are bigger than he is. And he doesn't care. He even picks up a Mynah bird who always replies, "I'm in!" when the boy is ready for a new adventure. (Quite possibly Chickster's favorite part. Maybe he just likes my bird immitation.) And along the way he also acquires a new stinky lucky hat, which is really a skunk under which he found a quarter.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

During his travels, this boy does some big business, catches a game-winning pass, becomes the president president (not the assistant president), and goes to the moon in a potato space suit made in Idaho.

Crazy and utterly ridulous though it may be, these are the kinds of books I love to read to Chickster. Things that encourage him to have hopes and dreams that are bigger than he is. A little "out there", maybe. But I want him to reach for the stars.

And quite possibly have friends who stand by him and encourage his dreams, hopes, and aspirations. Even if they are a Mynah bird and Skunk-hat.