Pangs of Failure...

April 2, 2007

It was bad enough that Laurel said to me this evening, "Who IS Rumpelstilskin, anyway?" (She is doing a play in her Readers Theatre class in which the famous little man appears.) I promised her that she really has heard the story before, although it has probably been many years, and that I will read it to her tomorrow. So then not more than an hour later, Duncan and I finish reading the first in The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh (and this particular story he has practically memorized thanks to audiobooks), when he says, "What is a Heffalump, anyway?" Ouch! Rumplestilskin gives me a brief pang of guilt. I've never been huge on fairy tales, but I have intended to cover the basics. But Heffalumps and Woozles! How could a child reach the age of 6 in our home and not know about Heffalumps and Woozles? The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh is a book that we read cover-to-cover to Jesse, our firstborn, several times after he received it as a gift at the age of 3. Several times!! But child #3 probably knows little more than the basic stories of Pooh in a very tight place and Pooh and the bees. I am confronted with true literary failure.

So the book is now next to Duncan's bed, waiting for Daddy to continue reading at bedtime. By the end of the month, Duncan will know all about Heffalumps. And tomorrow I'll find a copy of Rumplestilskin, and while I'm at it I'd better tackle all the other fairy tales I've probably neglected to tell to the younger two. That first kid gets all the good stuff!