I am guessing that if you’ve been a mom anytime after 1960, you will recognize that line. It’s from my favorite of all the (unbelievable volume of) children’s books by Theodore Geisel; Dr. Suess’ ABC’s. I remember the fondness I had for this book as a kid; something about the way the words wove, the rhymes, the alliterations, the humor, spoke to me. I swear I could hear Vera Violet Vinn, and how very, very, VERY awful she truly was on her violin. It was like this guy was in my nerdy little head.

Hey mom, in case I never said it, thanks for reading that to me!

As for me, I think that I read that book to my kids when they were little at least 200 times. I may have enjoyed it more than they did. There was always something about having those tiny people curled up in my lap, a captive audience, laughing at my crazy voices and pointing to their favorite pages so we could read them over and over (and over and over) again.

My kids have moved on to the worlds of The Bailey School Kids and Harry Potter now. And now they read to me! The lap curling is becoming less frequent…but I am SO glad as a mom that I always took time to read with them when they were little, even for ten minutes a day.

Jesse Manibusan, dear man that he is, is someone I run to often for advice. Jesse has two daughters, grown now…but I know he’s been with his own little girls where I am now. The most hilarious parenting advice he gave me is this; “you have to live with them in the present, and bring learning from the past, without shattering their future”. I laughed so hard when he said it, I almost wrecked the car.

But the best advice he gave, I don’t think he meant as advice. We were just talking about our love for our kids. And how there’s a world full of kids who are hurting because they need their parent’s love. Jesse said “love is hard, because love takes time.”

So, I truly have my mother to thank, who has her mother to thank, etc., for teaching me about time; that it is the most precious thing we can give our kids, because our time with them tells them that we love them.