I've reached a new parenting milestone: I officially hate a book. Like, I hate it. I HATE IT. All day long it's "purple story" this and "purple story" that. In the middle of the night. "Purple story!" With the crying and the screaming. So you read purple story. "Again!" You read purple story again. "Again! Again! AGAIN! AGAAAAAAIN!" Did I mention the crying and the screaming? "PUUUURPUUHL STOOOREEEEEEEEEE!"
I hate this book. And I'll be honest: I kind of hate Rusty for bringing it home. It's okay that I'm telling you this. I've already told him.
I don't normally believe in burning books. I'm ready to make an exception.
P.S. Fuck you, too, Goldbug. In fact, fuck you THE MOST.
23 comments:
You could always invent a make believe place for the book to have gone, a la 'the ranch' or 'a nice farm,' thereby teaching Master Sam how to deal with loss maturely and gracefully at a very young age.
That oughta get him into a prestigious preschool.
I'm so, so sorry. It is a sad day when, as a book lover, you reach the point at which you can no longer deal with a book. Even a kids book. Richard Scarry is a pain.
Aww, I'm sorry. Randomly, my mother mentioned the first time this happened to her with me just the other day- it was Saucy, the first book I ever read all by myself. And then apparently read 99,999 times over the next few months.
One day the book mysteriously disappeared. I don't remember that part, but according to legend I got over it in a few days.
18 years later, after searching the internet in vain (for MONTHS) for a replacement copy to relive my childhood through, my father gave me my original bedraggled copy for Christmas. It was awesome. Granted, I was a little bit older than Sam is, but you could try that- the bad book goes bye bye, and you get a emotionally irreplaceable and yet basically free gift for some future date.
Recently for His Majesty I purchased the now-sadly-politically-correct "Best Word Book Ever." I loved it when I was a child; I knew His Majesty would love it as well.
And he does.
Oh, does he ever.
To the detriment of nearly every other book on his shelves.
"HHHOOOOUUUUUSSSEEEE!!!" he wails, because the initial attraction was the Rabbit Family's morning ablutions. Now we read about Kenny Bear's morning ablutions again and again and again. I refrain from asking aloud why Kenny Bear feels compelled to wear a tie when the day's agenda only seems to include washing dishes and playing with friends, following an artery-clogging breakfast, of course.
O, what I wouldn't give for the return of His Majesty's previous obsession with "Spot Goes to The Beach".........
Oh my god, does that book bring back memories. I think every boy I ever babysat for had that stupid book. I feel your pain.
But...you don't really hate the dill pickle car, do you? Cause that's the best part of that book.
I think I'm lucky that the book my dd wanted to hear all of one summer was a shorter one (Fish Out of Water). I can still 'read' it aloud without even seeing the text. Handy for when you're really brain dead.
Ha! My 3yo daughter is obsessed with any and all Richard Scarry books (or "huckles" as we call them). We have to get one each time we visit the library. Some days, I am no longer mommy, but "Sgt. Murphy". Daddy made her a pickle car out of a cardboard box so that she could play "Mr. Frumble". Asking her to pick up her toys gets me nowhere, but asking her to pick up her toys "like Lowly Worm would" gets me a spotless room within minutes. And how does she let us know that she's woken up in the morning? She yells from her bed "save my Huckle"!
I am 29 years and change, and my dad still calls me "Lowley Worm" in moments of affection. Those books are inescapable. TORTURE!
So, if I bought this book, as I planned to do, for my cousin and her new son it might make her crazy? Interesting...
How do you always find ways to inspire book-related evil in me? Thank you, oh learned one.
My kids have every Richard Scarry book. Yes, they're evil and insidious, but NOTHING compared to the goddamn picture book of Yellow Submarine not one, but TWO people bought us. I hate that book, I hate John, Ringo, Paul, and George, I hate Captain Fred, I hate the Blue Meanies, I hate that stupid submarine - I wish they all would DIE.
Ok, not really - at least not John et al. - but oh my god, THAT BOOK.
Ah, yes, the Richard Scarry period -- however, I can never truly hate the books, because "Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever" has singlehandedly and blissfully amused my son through plane trips ranging from 5 to 8 hours, -- the big hardbound collection that little guy refers to as "The Lion Rides!" There are times when baby crack is goooood medicine.
While I was growing up, my mother reserved her harshest invective for Richard Scarry and then-President Reagan. At one point, I gravely informed my father that we couldn't read any books by Scarry "because the writer is a Republican." He laughed for about a week.
Just wait till you get to the Berenstain Bears...
Oh my god. No. NO!
Dude, I love Richard Scarry. To this day, even though my oldest son is 14, I'll tell him, "Can't you stay for a piece of pie?" just like the king tells Huckle in one of their videos.
Seriously - Richard Scarry is my shit, dawg. Come on.
On topic: Green Eggs and Ham is the book I wanted to burn. I knew that shit by heart, and was not at all happy about it.
Ha! I was reading one of your posts from last year about "The Snarkout Boys and the Avacado of Death" (a personal fave) and decided to read your most recent post. I knoooow what ya mean. I have a brother 14 yrs my jnr, and I swear to God and all that is holy, I will NEVER BE ABLE to get the words to "Horton Hatches the Egg" out of my freakin' head. And I always read it to him in a goofy voice - so that's stuck in my head as well.
"I meant what I said and I said what I meant - an elephant's faithful, 100%!"
Aaaagh.
I'm not so into your blog anymore, sorry to say.
Bye.
Er, bye?
Anyway.
Cap'n, we've given "disappearing" this book some serious thought. I love MaggieCat's story. When I told it to Rusty, he cracked up.
The sad thing is that I really do like Richard Scarry a lot, even despite the havoc this book has wreaked upon our house. Because my venom is not directed at the fact that we've read this story so many times. I can handle that. (Believe me, I can handle that.) It's the fact that Sam has conniptions every time we try to make him understand that we're not going to read the story over and over and over for infinity, that sometimes meals and baths have to come first, and that sometimes he has to go to bed INSTEAD OF READING PURPLE STORY. It's the Scarry-induced hysteria (hy-scarry-a?) we have to deal with several times a day that's starting to jangle my nerves. Just a tad.
I still like the pickle car, though, Sandy D. And the pickle truck, the doughnut car, and the cheese car. Heh.
And landismom, if I have anything to say about it, Sam's is never going to even KNOW about the Berenstain bears. I spent a summer babysitting kids who had buckets of those books, and MAN.
Sometimes I'm not sure which I enjoy more...the blog or the comments. These were classic...as was your title.
My five-year-old son taught my three-year-old daughter to read using Richard Scarry. Kid you not.
Oh that post made me laugh soo hard. My daughter loved that book, but I have hidden it from my son!
21 comments later . . . I know how you feel because I've experienced this phenom from both sides, but I DO love Richard Scarry and Milne's Pooh-bear--a teenage crush that never went away. I guess I'm just one of those women who never quite lost the kid inside.
NeoCleo
Bait and switch. Hide away Cars and Trucks and Things that Go and read another book for awhile for your own sanity. But don't burn it. Time off from the book will dull the hatred.
Loved it. Do not forget to read Sad Hindi Shayari and Love Shayari in Hindi.
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