books

As anyone who knows me knows, I love books, and the past week has been full of quite the variety of tomes. First, I found The Complete Adventures of Curious George, which includes all sorts of extras that I love - a few essays about the authors (with whom I am becoming mildly obsessed), and some art from their pre-George-fame days, in which they owned an advertising agency in Brazil. I had to illegally park (in front of a fire hydrant) and leave both sleeping kids in the car to run in and pick it up, and even though the car was never out of my sight and I was no more than 10 meters away from the vehicle, I imagined the what-if: the car gets towed and I have to explain to Steve that I left them alone in the car, alone alone alone - to go into a bookstore. I also bought a few Penderwicks books - I read the first one and loved it.

Next up, Easter books. My mom and dad have kept some serious gems, and Hendrik seems to love them as much as we did when we were little. His favourites (he wants them every night) are Little Bunny Follows His Nose and The Egg Book; I remember loving the Bunny book, and Humbug Rabbit, The Easter Bunny that Overslept, Daddy Long Ears, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes and The Egg Tree. The best part about his chosen two are his act-it-out antics with the second one. In the book, a bunny comes across an egg and despite gentle nudges, kicks, rock-throwing etc, can't get it open and can't guess what's inside. At Auntie Sarah's house, he decided to hide under a blanket and play out the storyline: "peck peck peck," he said, imitating the creature trying to get out of the egg. And then Sarah had to guess what was inside ("Is it a dinosaur? A hippo? A baboon?") until he said, "CRICKETY-CRACK!" and showed himself, just like in the book. It was adorable!

And lastly, on the book theme, are the many, many, many books that live in Comox with my sister. She's staying in my (great) Auntie Hope's old house, which is on a property that was owned by my dad's grandparents, and the place, though much sparser than a year or two ago, is still full of much of Hope's stuff, and that includes books. My great aunt was quite eccentric, and so was/is her collection; here are a few pictures (I couldn't resist!):

Now, if I could only find some time to read, life would be peachy. But for now, most of my days are filled with fun and smiles and family, and it can't get too much better than that...