Wow, we accumulated A LOT of baby books during our little girl’s infancy. There must have been hundreds of board books, cereal box freebies, and classic titles like Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh packed away into the nursery room closet.
Organizing these editions was one of the bigger, yet more pleasant, jobs that needed to be completed before baby number two’s birthday. Naturally, our three year old wanted in on the fun and during that shared experience I saw something amazingly cute and charming. Our little “big-girl”, upon seeing all these slightly-familiar-yet-new-again books, had an overwhelming desire to return to her own childhood (how weird is that to write about a three-year old? Yet, I bet you know exactly what I mean.) This activity made her want to cuddle up with Mommy and Daddy and listen to us read through tiny, 50-word books like “Snuggle Bunnies”, “Little Quack”, “There’s a Monster at the End of This Book” (which we once again read at least two times daily!) and “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon”. Some of these titles, especially “Snuggle Bunnies” which is one of the sweetest little baby books you’ll ever encounter, were her absolute favorites at 6 months, 9 months and such.
What a fun thing to revisit the past with baby books! You can time travel back to an earlier age when your now-bigger children were still small bundles of joy looking up to you as the words to those adorable books crawled out of your mouth. I bet that, like my three-year old, your children will also cherish the ability to get back to that time and you will once again feel that beautiful baby-bond with your kids, no matter how old and big they have since become, and they will again become the helpless creatures whose every little movement made you want to grab the camcorder.
Adele & Simon and Little Miss Liberty
Many Uses of a Book’s Dust Jacket