Dr. Seuss at Pottery Barn Kids

I grew up in a French-speaking town so Dr. Seuss was just not part of my childhood like it is for many kids in the US.

When I moved to California, I took a job as a mother’s helper while I attended college. One evening, their 5-year-old son asked if I could read to him a Dr. Seuss book. It was my first ever exposure to Dr. Seuss so I didn’t know what to expect. At the time, my English was not so great and my tongue stumbled on every other word throughout the book. All the repeating sounds, unusual sentence structure, silly made-up words, and tricky tongue-twisters were a foreigner’s nightmare. The little boy kept asking me to “read it faster! faster!” Meanwhile I could hear the parents in the next room dying of laughter at my train wreck of a reading session.

I have to admit it was pretty funny, but I still labeled Dr. Seuss as evil in my head and dismissed his books into the category of Things I Most Definitively Do Not Like, where it stayed for a very long time.

Then many years later I had a baby. Through gifts, Dr. Seuss sneakily made its way into my home. I read a few of the books with a fresh perspective and could not believe how fantastic and non-evil they really were after all!

My husband and I strive to expose our daughter to shows and books that demonstrate facts and the scientific method, without necessarily being educational per se. We love Curious George and the Cat in the Hat very much for that. We watch a little bit of Curious George on PBS almost every day, and own most of the Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library books. Both provide a huge focus on problem solving (most often through hypothesis testing, analogy, trial and error, and divide and conquer) and critical thinking skills (like evidence through observation, data collection and interpretation, reasoning within and beyond given assumptions, and clear communication without explicit language skills).

Plus, they’re just really fun!

When we bought our first home a few months ago, it was the perfect opportunity to upgrade our toddler from her nursery room to a big girl room. We browsed around the internet to decide on a theme for her new room, and were happy to find two of our favorite characters at Pottery Barn Kids: Cat in the Hat and Curious George.

If I was a normal person, I might have chosen one or the other. But because I have strange commitment issues with seeing the same bedding every single day, I bought both so we could switch back and forth. I also bought the Pottery Barn Kendall bed while it was on sale.

Then I waited for my items to be delivered and figuratively cried a little about how much money I had just spent. It was my first Pottery Barn purchase, mostly because I never before had the guts to spend that much money on home goods. However, I had made a couple of cheap bedding set purchases at discount stores that were definitively not even worth their discounted price, so I decided it was time to bite the bullet. I took a leap of faith into the Pottery Barn kingdom-o-mania. I wanted to buy a high quality item once and be done with home good purchases for a long time.

My one lucky break: I also received a Cat in the Hat quilt from Pottery Barn Kids to review for GeekMom. Now, I could review only the quilt — which was lovely in every possible way — as I was intended to do. However, I can’t stress enough how impressed I am with all of the items I also purchased, the bed especially. Everything is gorgeous, the bedding sets are holding up wonderfully, and the white wood bed feels like soft silk. And of course, my daughter is delighted to see her favorite characters on her bed.

Color me a fan. I know not everyone can afford the luxury of purchasing high priced home goods for the sake of saving themselves a little time and sanity, and I would still recommend waiting for a sale to the extend that it might help take the plunge. Nevertheless, I am thrilled with my purchases, all things considered.

And if that’s not geeky for you, Pottery Barn Kids also offers bedding with: Batman, Star Wars, and Spider-Man. You want to know the best part? They even come in sizes up to a queen bed. My daughter doesn’t have a queen bed, but I do! Clearly, Pottery Barn is saying it’s ok for adults to own these sheets too. Clearly.