Hop on pop

Every day, Daniel clamors for a half-dozen dozen or so readings of Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop in addition to the other readings that I have been trying to impose upon him.

Not only does he like to hop on his real-life pop, his taste is for frantic literature. I am partly to blame for this. Some people read slowly to their children; I tear through a book once I’ve figured out which syllables to emphasize. What with all the practicing I’m compelled to do, I eventually knit together a seamless and rapid cadence for each page.

It’s like practicing a level of Super Mario Bros. – run, run, jump! run, jump! duck! … repeat.

I imagine it’s also like rehearsing for the theatre.

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Every day, also, Daniel knocks my books off the top shelf of a particular basement bookcase. (He can reach that shelf from the stairs.)

Tonight was the last straw. I hauled all those books over to a corner of the laundry room. This made Jasper very happy. Now he can lie on that shelf, just underneath a vent.

Alas, for the second straight summer, our air conditioner is failing to cool the house.

A technician fixed last year’s leak. But he said the machine was about to die.

Has it died? We’ll find out soon.

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Samuel, too, likes to unshelve my books – especially if they belong to a set. Then he arranges them in patterns. (I discussed this once before; tonight Samuel took those same books and laid them out on the staircase, two to a step.)

In this photo he has made a grid of some black Penguin Classics and my set of Lord Peter Wimsey paperbacks.


Karin came home from work early today. She has a fever.