“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

To embrace Opeie's new love of Dr Seuss i thought i would splash out on a collection of books that i spotted on eBay to add to the books we already own. Ive always been a huge fan myself so Opeie's big day seemed like the perfect excuse to treat us both to something we love. It's so nice as a parent to have a special something that you do together and sitting together reading Dr Seuss seems to be our thing. Opeie holds my little finger and we say "Best friends" to each other, it's very cute.

Sadly the books didn't turn up in time for his birthday, they arrived the following day so as Opeie can't have chocolate due to allergies the lateness served as a great Easter present for him. He went straight to bed when we got home from out trip to Chris' on Friday so he didn't get to read them when i opened them but i managed to read a few of them relaxing in the bath.

Opeie's favourite so far has been 'wet pet, dry pet, your pet, my pet", but after not reading it before i have fallen in love with 'Thidwick the big-hearted Moose' what a cute story. Ive been so good since Christmas completely reigning in my toy collections but after buying these i can feel a book collection brewing. I think it's really important to have plenty of books at home for your children's development and Opeie is turning in to a real bookworm.

I'm quite sure Opeie's new books will keep us occupied for sometime especially because he loves hearing the same stories over and over. We've read the Lorax seven times in the last few days, i don't mind though as they are great stories and are fun to read. Plus i love seeing the big smile on his little face every time i turn a new page.

There's something really magical about these crazy books with their pages of insanity, it's probably the same way Mrs M feels about Dick Bruna. It'll be nice to have a collection to give Opeie when he's older. Next on my list to buy is 'Dr. Seuss & Mr Geisel and 'The Lorax' pop up book because Opeie is loving the new pop up books we brought Mrs M for mothers day which i will write about very soon.

"Big R, little r, Rosy Robin Ross. Rosy's going riding on her red rhinoceros"

Opeie's speech has really developed over the last few weeks and he is starting to pick up things very quickly. The week before last he counted to 12 completely out of the blue on his own, myself and Mrs M were speechless, were so proud of him. Opeie is a huge book worm and quite often throughout the day he will come to us saying 'book' and then will happily have 10 books read to him in a row. This morning i read 7 Dr Seuss books and 2 books that we got Mrs M for Mothers day. Everytime you turn a page when reading Opeie will call out all the things on the page that he knows, it's adorable.

We've been working on his alphabet for quite some time and although he can say the letters when copying us he still struggles a little with the dreaded letter 'W'. As he is loving Dr Seuss at the moment the Dr Seuss ABC book has been great for teaching him the letters and it's also one of my favourite of his books.

I didn't really get into Dr Seuss until my late teens but i fell in love the first time i read 'The Grinch' and it's something i wanted to install in the boys, much the same as Mrs M and her Dick Bruna books. I love anything that builds a child's imagination, the illustrations are beautifully done and the rhymes although simple and sometimes made up are perfectly executed...