Mimi Fixed It

My first true encounter with protecting Anna from things I don't want her to see or hear...

My mom, or Mimi to Anna, found the most adorable series of books. The first one was Llama Llama Mad at Mama. It has precious pictures and some hysterical rhyming (No more of this llama drama!). It's about going shopping at the Shop-O-Rama and Llama Llama decides to throw a little temper tantrum. He then finds out what can happen when you're nice and help Mama Llama. Anna loved it! Soon after, we found out that Webkins has just come out with a llama. I have yet to delve into the whole Webkins thing online and doubt I will anytime soon, but the stuffed animal was too cute for Mimi not to get for her!

Then Mimi found Llama Llama Misses Mama. It was perfect because it's about Llama Llama going to school and missing his mama. Anna has had some periods where she has been more difficult to leave at school, so this was perfect timing. However, the first time Will and I read it, it used the word "hates" in it. Who would write "hates" in a children's book? The teacher in the book is trying to get Llama Llama involved in what the other kids are doing and takes him over to the reading rug where some other kids are reading a story. It says, "Llama Llama hates that book."

I think this is awful! I don't want that word to be in Anna's vocabulary! Well, too late for that. I guess she picked up on our hesitation or lack of comfort with that phrase. I started reading "doesn't like that book" instead and she "corrects" me every time. I'm hoping that she will eventually forget about it if I keep saying the new phrase. But then I didn't know what I was going to do in a few years when she starts reading. Enter Mimi...

I told my mom about it and she was as up in arms about it as I was. She is, of course, a teacher after all. We took the book to Wilmington with us a couple of weeks ago (because we have to read it every night before bedtime). While we were there Mimi decided to fix it. She got on the computer and found a similar font in a similar size and printed out new words. She glued them into the book and even got her colored pencils out to make the background look the same. I was pretty impressed with her work. Now that the book is fixed, how do I get Anna to drop "hates" from her vocabulary?