Oh c'mon. Green eggs and ham? A gluttonous duck named McCluck? Or what about Horton Hears a Who? Paranoia maybe? It's really a shame that the first question people ask about Dr. Seuss is..."Was he high?" Why do you have to be high to have a brilliant imagination? Maybe that's why there's only a handful of brilliant children's book authors these days. The rest of them are all hopped up on anti-depressants and mood stabilizers, which TOTALLY takes all the fun out of writing from a whacked kid's perspective.
Now, here's the kicker. Seuss wasn't particularly fond of kids. Shortly after his death, his widow, Audrey, told the BBC that he was slightly afraid of them. She said he was always thinking: "What might they do next? What might they ask next?" She added: "He couldn't just sit down on the floor and play with them."
I'm a fan of Seuss because he killed off the "Dick and Jane" books. Thank god. See Dick run. *yawn* See the Zans drink spam while running around a stack of yam cans dressed in a tutu like only a Zans can. ( I totally made that up.) But you get the point. He made it okay to look at life through the wrong end of the telescope. And I've inadvertently given my kid the thumb's-up on doing just that.
When she was a year old, she started coloring on her walls. I'd wash it off, five seconds later....BAM. Covered again. So I said, "Screw it. We'll just paint over it when we move." And that's what we did. By the time we moved, that wall looked like a New York subway bathroom stall. Not much has changed. She's added her own particular brand of flare to her bed and dresser. Nevermind all the hours and gallons of Disney paint it took me to paint the stuff. Nevermind that. Yeah, don't think about THAT.
It occurred to Matt and I that we have lost control of our own home. There's a glow-in-the-dark space odyssey scotch taped to the hall wall. There isn't a wall in our den that isn't covered with her artwork. I finally had to paint part of the kitchen wall with chalkboard paint because she wouldn't stop tarting it up. But it's good, right? That she has this kind of freedom? Right? We're pretty sure we know what's going on. It's her way of letting everyone know that she lives here too. That she's an important part of this family. That she's the core of the universe. That all the planets and their sub-moons revolve around her. Okay. I went too far there.
All that aside....I simply meant to wish Dr. Seuss a happy birthday. So happy birthday, Theodor Seuss Geisel! Thanks for making all the parents in the world have to drink a quart of gatorade to work up the mouth-spit to read your books to their kids every night.
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