You gave me Christopher Robin, and then
You breathed new life in Pooh.
Whatever of each has left my pen
Goes homing back to you.
My book is ready, and comes to greet
The mother it longs to see -
It would be my present to you, my sweet,
If it weren't your gift to me.
A.A.Milne, Winnie-The-Pooh
Sometimes it's hard when, as a parent, you are lost in the chaos of messy rooms, a hectic round of children's activities, and children themselves who are permanently non-compliant, to remember the most amazing thing - that you are part of a unique family, and the interdependencies between the people within it are so tangled as to be inextricable.
The Winnie-The-Pooh stories are magical - I am just working through the series with my four year old. But what is even more magical is that they have their roots in a real (albeit now old-fashioned) family, where the son wanted his dad to tell him stories, and was spellbound when they turned out to be about him and his toys - and where the dad realised that there would be no magic were it not for his wife - who is, other than the dedication, completely invisible in the stories themselves.
