Angus and the Cat

It is a pleasure I've been waiting for to see Liam get old enough to start to really enjoy his storybooks. He really likes them. He's into the stories, and we frequently have little conversations about them along the line of this:

Liam: hau-ray (with a very soft "h").

Mama: what Liam?

Liam: haur-ay!

Mama: honey, I'm not sure I understand, try one more time please.

Liam: hau-raaaay (accompanied by sign for bath).

Mama: Oh! Harry! Yes, Harry got really dirty and then had a bath.

Liam: (kitty noise).

Mama: Kitty? Do you mean Sugar? Sugar the kitty had a bath too, that's a different story.

Liam: huh-huh (with an uplift at the end; what he says for "yes").

It's really not as much like talking to myself as the recount makes it sound.

An unexpected pleasure it to see Liam become totally and absolutely captivated by a book I actually remember from my childhood. It's even nicer that he's reading my childhood copy which by some twist of fate and superior organization by my mother, survives only slightly bent and ripped.

This is a funny book, like Runaway Bunny where the picture are all back and white on one set of pages and in color (mostly bright pink, yellow and navy-ish blue) on the next set of pages. It tells the story of a scottie dog (Angus) and how he finds himself living with a Cat who is allowed to do all the things that he is not allowed to do; and how he wants the Cat to go away, except that when the Cat hides and he thinks she's gone, he really misses her, and is then glad when she comes back. Liam especially likes the parts where Angus chases a frog and where the Cat hides on the roof.

It's funny to see how directly the stories influence his play life. He is all of a sudden very interested in playing hide and seek and peek-a-boo again and I can only think that spending all weekend talking about how the Cat hides on the roof and Angus looks all over for her has something to do with it.