A First Reading To A Very Special Audience

Throughout the process of creating a children's book the inspiration has been experience. Without my daughter I would never have had the experience and inspiration for this book. After excitedly waiting for the proof copies in the mail their arrival was exciting to say the least. After privately enjoying the opening of the box and first flip through the excitement of sharing them was building. As the house settled down for the evening I finally pulled out a copy and slowly read through to my amazingly supportive audience of two, my husband and my daughter. To watch my five year olds eyes as I read the dedication page to her and watched her huge smile at her familiar face smiling back at her I suddenly felt "it". The "it" was something powerful that took my excitement for seeing this project completed to a whole new level. Along this process I have thought of my daughter and our experience together many times, even dedicating the book to her. But until we read the book together and I saw her smile and focus as each page turned, I had not connected her to the project. She knew little, if anything, of Mommy's project and to see her understand that the words, the feeling, the warmth that I was wanting to convey was our story made my heart swell.

As I laid next to her as she settled in for bed we shared with each other our favorite thing about the day as we do most nights. She then asked me "who is going to read the book?", I told her I hoped many Mommy's and Daddy's would enjoy the book with their children. She simply smiled and said "lets read it again tomorrow."