…I do not like them, Sam I am!
After dinner, while she insisted she rinse the dishes and load up the dishwasher, Ashe helped the boys assemble the toy trains and the tracks around the playroom. He had removed his jacket shortly after Paige and Clint left, and by the time dinner was over, he was moving around the playroom in his bare feet, on his hands and knees putting the train set together while the boys climbed all over him, directing him with what to do. By the third hour, the triplets were bored of their brand new train and insisted they watch Finding Nemo, but not before Ashe read them Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, complete with sound effects. Even Riley had been assigned the role of the grumpy narrator, much to her nephews’ delight, who laughed and giggled every time she made a grumpy face and lowered her voice.
-Loving Ashe
I wrote Loving Ashe when my son was three-years-old and I was reading Dr. Seuss’ books out loud to him. He loved Green Eggs and Ham most of all as well as One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. I think that’s the title, but I digress.
So while writing a babysitting scene in Loving Ashe, I defaulted to the books I read the most that my son loved, complete with all the sound effects. Green Eggs and Ham. I actually used to call it Sam-I-Am because, in Ashe and Riley’s story, he calls her Riley-I-Am because of their babysitting adventure.
It’s one of the things that strikes me when I re-read sections of my books (for research!) and I remember why I included a certain tidbit here and there. It feels like leaving a part of me in every book like Voldemort left his Horcruxes everywhere… only in my case, it’s in my books and usually, I know about them and no one else does.
Well, at least, you know about this one…
Liz Durano 