MARK MY WORD: FAMILY LIKES `GREEN EGGS AND HAM' IN A BOOK

It's not Tolstoy. It's better than that.

I'm talking about "Green Eggs and Ham." This isn't the science experiment in your refrigerator.

This is that Dr. Seuss book that you read about a million times when you were a child.

Our daughter, Becca, loves the book. It was a huge hit with her entire kindergarten class on St. Patrick's Day.

Many Americans view St. Patrick's Day as an excuse to drink large quantities of green beer.

Personally, I'd rather eat green eggs and ham, in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse, here and there, or anywhere.

In Becca's kindergarten class, the students wore green to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Becca said she and her classmates wore green so they wouldn't get pinched.

Perhaps we should make green clothes mandatory in the workplace. Then, maybe we wouldn't have to worry about all that sexual harassment stuff.

At any rate, Becca read the "Green Eggs and Ham" book to us several times in the past few days.

Joni and I were thrilled. She read the entire book, word for word.

Granted, the same phrases appear in the book a thousand times. But IRS forms are like that too. It's just that they aren't nearly as entertaining.

In the world of literacy, nothing beats Sam-I-Am.

I think Becca enjoys the book largely because she is a picky eater. She can't imagine eating anything but corn, chicken fingers, ice cream and candy.

Dr. Seuss understood that kind of thinking.

In the world of kindergarten, the alphabet is your friend. It's not something to be taken for granted.

Last week, Becca and her classmates studied the letter "S" and the sound it makes. Her class has learned all about the Letter People.

"S" stands for sleep, which, of course, is something that most parents give up while they are raising their children.

When you're not celebrating St. Patrick's Day or shuttling your child to a birthday party, you're reading one of those parents' magazines.

You know the ones I mean. Those are the magazines that have those exciting stories on how to raise a responsible child and discipline your kids without sending them to the moon or even reform school.

Of course, one of the big topics for parents these days is "time." We don't have any free time.

That's because we've scheduled our lives away. We rush around trying to fit all that leisure time into our lives.

There's nothing leisurely about leisure time. In today's society, the object is to keep moving.

This is easier to do when you're 6 years old like Becca. Even our youngest daughter, 2-year-old Bailey, is constantly on the move. It just takes her a little longer to get there than her sister.

Joni and I hope that the family treadmill will run out of batteries or at least slow down.

Besides, we want to make time for the really important things like "Green Eggs and Ham."

All that reading just leaves a good taste in our mouths.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.