Rachel and Mommy write a book!

After school today, Ivy was visiting with her grandma, who is here for 13 days, and Rachel needed to fill out a form for Girl Scout camp (she was required to do it all by herself), and afterward she decided that she and I needed to write a book. We read a couple of books the other day about Sam the Library Mouse who wrote little books of his own, so Rachel was inspired and before I could stop her she cut out a couple of squares of paper, had me staple them and then told me to do the writing and the drawings.

Uh-uh, I told her. I'LL do the writing and YOU do the drawings. She said OK, as long as I made up the story. She only gave me the title: "Squeak!"

So I made up a story about Squeak the Mouse (a female, at Rachel's insistence) and how she was very clever and adventurous, and decided to take a car trip across the country, but the car broke down, and she decided to walk, and she saw mountains and oceans and schools and houses and flowers and trees, but when she saw schools and other mice there, she got lonely and decided to stop. She made friends with two mice, Crumb and Cheesy, and even though she was happy to settle down she soon decided to go on another adventure. So she packed a bag -- only this time, she took her friends with her.

Rachel was so delighted with the story! She insisted on sitting on my laps and did truly excellent drawings to accompany the 12-page text. She wants to bring it into school tomorrow and have Mrs. Kappert read it to the class. I told her to be careful not to lose it because I intend to keep it FOREVER. Our names are on it: by Lisa Grace Lednicer and Rachel Drury DeSilver.

We spent so much time on the book that poor Drew had to make salad and set the table and we ate after 8 p.m., but I didn't care -- it was so worth it. Moments like that must be seized and remembered.