THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING

Those of you who have little ones who still snuggle in your laps for stories, do you have Little New Kangaroo by Bernard Wiseman and illustrated by Theresa Burns?
If not, please pick it up the next time you are at the library or the book store.

It is about a baby kangaroo who is riding around in his mama's pouch and, every time he spots a friend, he offers them a ride. By the end of the story, mama is carrying a koala, a bandicoot, a wombat and a platypus, along with her own baby. Each page shows mama getting more and more tired; until she eventually drops them all off at their homes for bedtime.

It was one of our kids' favorite stories and still sits on the bookshelves in our basement where the treasured children's books remain because I could not part with them.

I always told the kids I could relate to mama kangaroo because it seemed our mini van kept filling up with children. No matter where we stopped, there were more children getting in or out than had been there originally. No kidding, sometimes I feel a little worried if I only have 1 or 2 kids in the van.

Well just now I heard a reporter on Animal Planet say this about kangaroos: Most of a kangaroo's waking moments are spent searching for or eating food. At least this week I have related to that because it has been, well, a bad week to be a woman. You know, one of those weeks where it is best to avoid the kitchen if you can or you might just open the bottle of Hershey's syrup, tilt your head back and chug-a-lug like a football player drinking Gatorade.

OK, that never happened. Seriously, it didn't. I just thought about it.

Or you might stop at Mrs. Fields to pick up a few cookies FOR THE CHILDREN and end up eating two before they come home from school. That's all I'm going to say about that.

I KNEW Mama Kangaroo touched me in a peculiar way. I KNEW there was some connection there that went way beyond a simple children's story. Now when somebody asks me "If you could be any animal, what would you be?" I know how to answer.

Kangaroo. Definitely a kangaroo.