Pre-reading

Is something I should learn to do. I should also learn not to judge a book by its cover. In my defense, a title such as I'll Always Love You seems innocent enough. Especially if the picture on the cover is of a boy hugging his dog. But, that's exactly the kind of book that will end up biting you in the bum.

I started realizing something was going wrong about a third of the way through when I finally clued in to the fact that, up to that point, the book was written completely in past tense. Sammy used to love to chase squirrels. Sammy used to love to dig.

Soon I found myself saying things like, The kids are crying because they want Sammy to go to the park with them but he just feels like lying there and taking a nap.

The truly low point came with my next line - Now they're crying because they are looking at that big pile of dirt and wishing that Sammy was there with them because they know how much he likes to dig, but he was too tired and decided to stay home.

I hid the book from Scott because a) his ad-libbing skills aren't up to 3 year old speed and b) I knew I'd hear some sniffling (his) over the monitor.