So the night before last I was out buying presents for my second ever baby shower. This is very exciting for me because now I really feel like a grown up.

Anyway, knowing nothing about toys or clothes for little tiny babies, and not really wanting to understand breast pumps and other unrecognizable paraphernalia (mostly yellow plastic encased in rubber), I decided on books.

Talk about a walk down memory lane. Since my brother is 11 years younger than me I have a whole stock of stories that I used to love to read to him. In fact his baby shower was my first ever (19 years in between - I guess I don’t know very fertile people). Anyway here are a few of my favorites:

Goodnight Moon - especially the line, ‘goodnight cow jumping over the moon’ which I think I might have actually made up but I still like it and, if it isn’t in the book, it should be.

The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar - a story that teaches children two things (1) how to count and (2) the all important lesson that if you stuff yourself full of junk food, you will become a beautiful butterfly - oh rats, I spoiled the ending

Beatrix Potter - the tale of Peter Rabbit may just be the reason that I was afraid of men when I was little - I mean that Farmer MacGregor is one mean sob

I Love You Forever - this book is actually the only proof I have that my middle brother is not, in fact, the cold hearted business man he always portrays. Every night when he was a kid my mom would say ‘I love you forever’ and he would answer ‘I like you for always’. Very, very soppy n’est pas?