I recently made it through a reading of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish without having my tongue tied by the infamous Dr. Seuss. Anyone who has spent some time with that book knows that this feat is either a parenthood right of passage or a minor miracle—I’m not sure which.

We have been reading him this one before bed for a few weeks now, and the work is growing on both of us. It is a glorious 50-plus page book of tongue twisters designed to trip parents up and make them forget that they even knew how to read to their children. The first time I read it probably took twice as long because of tongue twisters such as:

“I wish for fish with my ish wish dish.”

Or

“What good to a Nook is a hook cook book?”

Or

“You never met a pet as wet as they let this wet pet get.”

I love the wild imagery throughout the book followed up with the repeated line, “These things are fun, and fun is good.”

It’s been a few decades since I myself was familiar with the rhymes of Dr. Seuss. I am quickly regaining my familiarity. Jamie’s loving it, and getting really into what’s on every page.

It really is interesting watching him hear these stories and watching him piece things together.

Before we started reading One Fish, Two Fish, Jamie’s book obsession was Good Night Moon. I wanted to write a critique of some of the oddities found in the room, but there isn’t much left to say after this post from the Ugly Volvo.

For months we read GNM to Jamie and he would finish sentences and say good night to objects in the room that the author never even directly pointed out. He also developed an unhealthy obsession with the mouse on the floor, which was a bit strange. As we picked him up to put him in his crib, he would say good night to every stuffed animal, inanimate object and even the frog-shaped humidifier.

He’d refer to the book as “Night night moon.”

But soon he became bored with it, and we moved on to the “Fishies” book as he likes to put it. Every night as we are changing him for bed he yells for “Fishies,” and is starting to point out some of the characters in the book.

We’re moving through a lot of reading at the Brennan house. Maybe next week it will be some Silverstein. From there we can move on to Tolstoy or Nietzsche. These things are fun, and fun is good.