Donald Duck: Private Eye

     The new year finds us so busy! It's been tougher than I thought to make sure we get a story in every night. However, I refuse to give up! One setback cannot make me quit, which is what normally happens. I still have the alarm set for 8:45pm. As we get back to school tomorrow, I hope our routine will be more set and the bedtime stories more natural for us.

     I've taken to letting Juliana pick one book per night. Tonight she picked one of her "early readers" that goes something like "This is my dog. He is a brown dog...." Not exactly the stuff of imagination or sweet dreams. But I hate to discourage her interest in learning to read, so we did that one first and then I had her pick another.

     I had to smile when she brought me my old Walt Disney Story Land book. Published in 1974, it is the one book I own that bears testament to my childhood. It's pages are marked and you can see where I practiced writing my name in several spots. It is one of the few books that actually makes my heart give a little tug because I remember it so fondly. Inside it's covers are 55 stories, all based on Walt Disney films and characters. Juliana picked Donald Duck, as she knows who he is.

     The story itself is pretty basic, but had enough mystery to keep her involved. She really enjoyed looking at my scribbles and attempts to write my name more than the story itself. I'm so glad my mom put it up when I was growing out of childhood, for it is a treasure to me and to my little girl. Someday she can pass it down to her own kids. Along with the books of hers that I save, of course.