Birthday Pesints

Tripp is "free!" Three years old.

His mother told me that when he woke up on his birthday morning and asked his customary morning question, "Mommy, are you upstairs or downstairs?" She called up to him,"Down here, Birthday Boy, and you are three years old today!" I imagine she swung her arms wide to embrace her son.

"No, I not!" Tripp wailed, rubbing his eyes. "I still two."

"Oh, okay," his mother said.

Then he noticed that a new toy had been added to his collection of Toy Story characters: the much coveted Zurg, Disney's version of Darth Vader. After some playing with Zurg and Jessie the Cowgirl and someone named Stinky Pete, "the pwospectuh," he said, "Okay, I free now."

A boy needs time.

Tripp, unlike his grandmother (in this case me) did not rip through his presents with an air of dissatisfaction and incipient sadness. He carefully explained that Zurg fights Buzz Lightyear with laser cookies. To demonstrate, he performed a series of vigorous flinging motions. I learned about Jessie and a Slinky dog and a truly frightening character named Big Baby, whose purpose seems to be to loom over the other toys in a menacing way, a death grip on its bottle.

During discussion time it is vital for me to express my comprehension of different elements in the story by repeating them, verbatim.

"And this is Bullseye, Jessie's horse," Tripp explained.

"I see," I said.

"Bullseye," he repeated. "Jessie's horse."

"Got it," I said.

He waited.

I waited.

"Oh! This is Bullseye, Jessie's horse!"

"Yes," breathed Tripp.

I brought BOOKS, some more appropriate than others. A story about a young raven named Edgar who replies Nevermore to each request made by his mother was a good choice.

"Can you read it again? Again? Again?" And, holding up his forefinger, "Okay, just one yast time."

A board book based on Moby Dick was not. Each page contained a single illustration. First was the Pequod, labeled "ship."

"Ship," repeated Tripp with great seriousness.

There was a cotton tufted Moby Dick, labeled "whale."

"Whale," said Tripp.

But, then came Captain Ahab's peg leg labeled, as one might expect, "leg."

"That's just great, Mom," my daughter said, closing the book before Tripp could see it or the next page beside which was the caption mad.

"You can just take that one right back to Vermont."

We could, however, all agree on a collection of books about Winnie-ther-Pooh. My mother had read them to me, and I had adored them. When I read them to Katherine, Milne's wordplay and humor was as evident to her as it had been to me. As a little girl she had quickly gotten the gentle joke of Pooh living under the name of Saunders. Tripp in his turn giggled in the first chapter when Pooh slithers down through the branches of the bee tree, foiled in his attempt to garner honey, exclaiming ow and bother as he falls.

I suspected he might, he being that sort of boy.

He will outgrow Zurg. Eventually he will discover Melville. Winnie-the-Pooh is forever - or at least until next Tuesday.

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