Julia's New Book

Today is an exciting day in the Rowe household.  Our budding author Julia debuted her very first non-picture book.  Furthermore, this is also the first book she's written all on her own, without asking for any help spelling out the words.  I'm happy to present to you the very "Dick and Jane"-esque early reader "I See Too":

I See Too
Be Julia Rowe


Julia even read her book aloud to Madeleine and I, which helped me understand the phrase structure in her run-on word layout.  Very e.e. cummings of her - shun the traditional sentence structure!  No punctuation!  No space between words!

Page One:

JULIA: (reading aloud) No, you see.  Love sees.  Julia sees.  Madeleine sees.  Mom sees.  Dad sees.

I love her use of metaphor here, especially how she negates the idea that "you see," then explains that "love sees."  Very symbolic, especially seeing as she then clarifies that while "you" alone can't see, the combination of Julia, Madeleine, Mom and Dad - aka "LOVE" - all see.  Woah.  Deep and heavy.


Page Two:

JULIA: (reading aloud) No, Mom, Dad sees too.  Moms too.  Me too.
ME: I love it!
JULIA: Mama?  Wouldn't it be funny if I wrote "ME'S TOO?"
MADELEINE: Uh, no, I'm THREE.


Page Three, the grand finale:

JULIA: (reading aloud) No, Dad.  Mom sees too.  Dads too.  Me too.


BRAVO, Julia!

What say you, blog-readers?  Do you see, too?

Writing books is not all Julia has been up to lately.  Both she and Madeleine are very excited about their Noah's Ark stick puppets they made at Sunday School yesterday:

ME: Madeleine, what's this?
MADELEINE: Uh, a rainbow, and a boat.
ME: And whose boat is it?
MADELEINE: Uh...maybe it's JULIA'S.

Julia, Noah.  What's the difference, really?


In fact, Madeleine seems to be spotting the divine incarnate in all sorts of human beings lately.  As she and I sat up in the choir loft after church, awaiting my choir rehearsal, we listened to the priest performing his closing prayers in the sanctuary below.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  What's God doing down there?
ME: What do you mean?
MADELEINE: (pointing down at the priest) What's God doing down there?
ME: Do you think that man is God?
MADELEINE: Uh-huh.
ME: That's not God, honey.  That's the priest.
MADELEINE: But...why is his name Father?
ME: That's just the name we give to a priest.  We call him Father, but he has a real name, too.

Little did we know that our church is the chosen one of all churches everywhere, as we have God Himself conducting our worship services.  WOW.

Madeleine later explained the situation with perfect clarity to Auntie Shannon on the phone.

AUNTIE SHANNON: How was church today, Madeleine?
MADELEINE: Um...GOOD!
AUNTIE SHANNON: Did you see God?
MADELEINE: (thinking hard) Uh...we didn't.  Because...DOCTORS aren't ALLOWED to go to SCHOOL.

Well, if that doesn't sum it all up perfectly, I'm not sure what does.