The Enchanted Places

I remember being amazed as a child when I discovered

Christopher Robin to be an actual person.

Some of my earliest memories are those of my mother reading from the four part series of Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne. The friendships forged in the Hundred Acre Wood resonated so deeply within me as a child that I at times wonder just to what extent Christopher Robin's world influenced my social ideologies. As a young adult while browsing for something to read in my mother's vast collection of books the title "The Enchanted Places" and Author Christopher Milne leaped out at me. It would forever change the way I viewed Christopher Robin's world. From a very imperfect father came a dedication of stories to a son written entirely from the heart. The life A. A. Milne so wanted to give his son Christopher was not to be in real life but was given in the pages of his stories about a boy and his Bear. The Enchanted Places touches me even more so now that I am a mother of two. We are all imperfect parents in our own way. We may not ever go to the extreme of Milne in creating a perfect world for our children as he did through Winnie-the-Pooh, but I believe that we are able to create perfect moments in our children's memories. My mother reading to me are such perfect moments, and in my mind those memories are My Enchanted Place. To celebrate my daughter Wren's third birthday this year, we held a Winnie-the-Pooh Party. Many ideas came from The Winnie-the-Pooh Party Book published in 1971. Nearly everything for the day was handmade including the food, games, and decorations. This was necessary as much for cost as it was for the lack of true Winnie-the-Pooh items in the marketplace. When I think of all the hours involved in creating the honey bee pinata and how fast it was broken open, I marvel at the foolishness of not buying one premade. But then I quickly remember Wren helping me glue bits of paper over the balloon and watching with bright eyes as the paints made the bee come to life. It was more work than it could have been, but it was An Enchanted Place in Time for Wren and her mom.