Oliver's First Book

Being a grandmother for the first time has little joys involved that I think I took for granted as a mother. So I'm always thinking of what I can give to Oliver as "firsts." I did give him the very first quilt, of course. Choosing the first book would be tough -- or so I assumed -- but the first title I thought of was the winner. This happened to be my favorite book when I was a very little girl:

I loved the spotted protagonist because he could do all sorts of neat things with his spots, and I think Oliver will love it just as much when he gets old enough to read the story. Anyway, I inscribed it for him, and read it to him when we visited his parents in their new place last Sunday. Oliver sat on my lap and stared at the pages while I was reading, which at 4-1/2 months old was very cool of him. To reward him for being a good boy we played in his activity chair next:

This was the first book, but certainly not the last -- and it's not about me being a book writer, really. It's more about family. My great-aunt instilled the love of reading in me by giving me books when I was a girl (she even mailed them to me), so I'm simply passing along her gift.