Winnie-the-Pooh and bonding over bedtime stories
2 years and 344 pages later, we finished A. A. Milne's classic collection
I don’t remember the exact day we began reading the complete collection of Winnie-the-Pooh, but I do remember two things.
First, I remember my wife and I laughing as we read each page. A. A. Milne’s stories are fantastically silly and his prose is one of a kind; In fact, at first, it can somewhat difficult to read. It’s written as though it were a recorded conversation between several six-year-olds. Word are intentionally misspelled ever so slightly and there are capitalistations where there shouldn’t be capitalisations. With each page, you get more used to it and by the end, I felt a melancholy that these written conversations between the animals of the 100 Acre Wood, and their friend Christopher Robin, had come to an end.
Second, I remember that when we began the book, we could only read a page or two at a time before our daughter, then barely more than one-year-old, would flip to the opening two pages of the book so she could comment on the honey bee pattern inside — a request that went on for probably the first six months of our getting to know Pooh Bear and his eclectic group of friends and acquaintances.
Like so many interests of toddlers, her interest in Winnie-the-Pooh came and went with the seasons. Every now and again, we’d try to read another few pages as we strained ourselves to remember where we left off last. Then, one day, not more than two months ago, her desire for me to read Pooh Bear stories to her before bed became insatiable.
Each night, we’d lay in bed and she’d nuzzle her head between my chest and my underarm as she wrapped her legs around mine like a snake around a tree branch. When she finally found the right position — a position that perfectly balanced comfy-ness with her ability to clearly see each page — I’d begin reading.
Some nights, we read ten or fifteen pages at a time before her attention waned. And the questions! Oh, the questions. Like any three-year-old, they were never-ending. Most revolved around the actions and whereabouts of Tigger.
“Why does Tigger bounce?”
“Why did Tigger eat thistles?”
“When will Tigger come?”
“Can we go back and read the Tigger story?”
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Her fixation on Tigger’s shenanigans were only temporarily arrested when we’d come to a page with an illustration of several characters. She’d always be sure to name each one.
“Piglet, Owl, Kanga…” she’d say, pointing to each.
I really knew she was taking in the content of these stories when she started adding Pooh Bear language to her lexicon.
“Oh bother!” she’d cry when something silly or slightly unfortunate happened in our daily lives.
“Tiddely-Pom” she’d sing under her breath at random throughout the day.
Just having turned three, I am not sure if she’s going to remember our nighttime routine and how much fun we had reading Winnie-the-Pooh together, but I will.
And as I’ve come to understand, her remembering is besides the point. Her soul will remember snuggling up into the safety of daddy’s body as I read her books. And not just Pooh Bear, but many hundreds of books over the years and many hundreds more to come. These are the memories of fatherhood that I always dreamed of as a young man. Memories so simple and so good that you’re tempted to pinch yourself to make sure it’s all real.
While this is, perhaps, the longest it’s ever taken me to get through a single book, it’s no doubt been the most enjoyable.
I believe the Peter Rabbit collection is next on the docket. Lucky me… Lucky us.
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