When i try and think of how i learnt to read i can't remember - trying to teach Tivi to read has been a little daunting because i can't find the exact moment when i saw beyond the sound of letters and unlocked the message in the random symbols- the point where i fell in love with language and the magic that lay within it's manipulation. Sometimes i'm a little afraid that she won't have that moment and it would be a shame to me, if as a mother i never opened that up for her.

These days- of the favourite moments - storytime before bed is smashing the hits list.

For one the childhood memories tied with certain books - mostly of me sitting alone and ignoring the world in all its senselessness, reading my days away and wanting the nights to finish faster so that i'd be allowed to read some more... haha these memories have been unravelled and re-sewn with new threads- made new and sentimental.

Then while i watch the smiles on their faces when a story becomes a sound, a scene, a world- i know for me, if there's anything i can hope to instill in them, an imagination- might just be enough to give them that indestructible seed of Hope- That life isn't always what it appears to be. So armed with the fearlessness that accompanies faith- they will go and search for the experiences that will mean everything, or possess the ability to make every experience mean something.

The best stories are sometimes those of the things we know every day- just seen differently, made wonderful by perspectives we never took the time to see.

Sometimes they are just wanderings, a drifting away from all the ties that bind us to now.

Together we have travelled, these little people and I.. here are some of the places we have been and the wonders that they have discovered as i have discovered them.

For Tivianh-

A baby shower gift? It must have been.. because she was young when we first opened it and for months it was the only time she ever lay still and quiet. It was a gift from Aunty Carol, who told me that she knows any child of mine will be a reader. (Thanks Carol)

A story and a song rolled into one. Talking animals and food. How can you go wrong. Zane and I read it so much to her, we memorised it and used to recite the lines on random excursions- she would cry and scream continuously some days, but never when we read this book to her - just a baby and mesmerised. In it now a memory as lovely as a droplet of sunshine- in all the confused days of a newborn, the first time parent daze that accompanies her beginning- now encased forever within the pages of Wombat Stew, is a moment of Tivianh as she was... new, small and as certain as anything will ever be.

The Very Hungry Chetapiller

Che loves, he loves the colour yellow and he loves particular toys, he loves his belongings like they are beyond precious treasures. Che's always been a quiet marvel to me because he chooses for no obvious reasons, the things that he holds dear, brings with him everywhere and runs back to find once play is over.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar might be his, because he was, and in some way will always remain to me - a tiny creature in search of the things that will transform him into something miraculous- that and- he Is always hungry.

He chose it as the first book to love. He can read it from memory, can ask you how many and count them with you, show you where the moon is that shone as the little egg lay on its leaf, tell you if it's a slice of watermelon or a piece of pie. The first book that captured him... and every night now he asks if we can read.

Jacien - All the ways.

He has his own bed now, but he always ends up back in ours. In the mornings when he wakes way to early and i'm not yet ready to drag my tired body from the sheets, i point and he climbs down... retrieves this and declares 'BOOK!'. It's become our most-mornings ritual. A Christmas gift from Aunty Vy. Jacien learnt to say the words Butterfly, Bee and Flower from the pictures. It's his Mummy Teddy and Jacie Teddy and we follow them page to page to find at the end - a hug and a smile. This is tied to him for always - the last memory of the first discoveries of words.

And All together now... A wild rumpus.

When i first started reading to Tivi, when she goooed and gaaed and giggled at singing animals- Zane said one day 'There's a book that always freaked me out as a kid, but i loved it... it was weird and i can't remember why i liked it but i always remember it- we should get that for her.'.

He never offered me a title, but i knew this was the one- so i walked down to the bookstore from our old Parramatta apartment, and bought the Wild Things home.

Together for years we roared our terrible roars and gnashed our terrible teeth, rolled our terrible eyes and showed our terrible claws... we would wild rumpus in the day times, before bed at night times and randomly at anytime. The book followed us to New Zealand, and in the cold days and starry nights, we drove through the landscapes on the rocky roads, and told them that they were there... the wild things hidden in the trees, afraid to come out.

I learnt that the real way to tame Wild Things, was not to stare into their yellow eyes, but to take them, word by word... page by page... to places outside of our bedrooms, out of our carseats, out of our own minds and into wherever we wanted to be. We could sing with animals over bugs in stews, follow caterpillars feasting, love stronger than the wind- rhyme and reason and make balloons grow on trees - we would travel in and out of days and weeks and months... and always come Home- to find our suppers waiting.