Library Book Review (We've Been Reading Some Good Ones!)
Hi Everyone! Happy Tuesday!
Thanks for the support recently with the crazy schedules/potty training/toddler bed mayhem. Will do a proper update soon but the short version is things are getting better, not worse, even if everything has yet to return to normal.
Anyway...
One of the things I miss most about Seattle is the gorgeousness of the Central Library. And also the fact that you can select books online and they are set on a shelf together for you to pick up.
Well, guess what? The ABQ library does the same thing. And since we've switched to that vs letting the kids randomly pull books off the shelves, the number of books we get that I (and the kids) like has risen hugely.
Here are some of our recent favorites:
- Little Oink—The language in this book is so clever and creative, and the story, about how little pigs are supposed to make a mess but this one actually wants to be clean, is super cute. There are lots of requests for this book around here
- Hippo! No Rhino!--I may have talked about this one before...it's a book the kids specifically asked to have back once I'd returned it. It's about a zoo keeper who puts the hippo sign on the rhino display and the rhino is not pleased. There is pooping in this book, which is a big hit with the kids
- Truck Stop--A quiet little book about a kid whose parents own a truck stop. I want to live in their sweet little world...
- The Bathing Costume (Or, the Worst Vacation of My Life)--Great pictures, but I wasn't sure how this was going to go over because the text on each page is LONG. Turns out, the kids don't care and will easily sit through this story. The narrator is so likeable...a little kid going away with his grandparents and cousins and NOT his mom for the first time ever. The voice this little kid has is one-of-a-kind as SO funny. Absolutely love this book
- This Is a Moose--Love this one too, about a movie director trying to make a documentary about a moose, but the moose really wants to be an astronaut, not just a plain old moose like the director wants him to be. This is one of those books that gets better and better every time we read it. I did return it today, but have a feeling we'll be checking it out again...
- Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site--This book I didn't return, it's a great combination of trucks (which both kids love) and a bedtime story and oh my gosh, the big tough trucks are soooooo cute with their teddy bears, blankets, etc. at bedtime. I have a feeling this is going to become part of our permanent collection
- Flora and the Flamingo--Cute pics. Very pink
- I Will Never, Not Ever, Eat a Tomato--Picky eaters was a big theme in this batch of books...this one solves the problem by the big brother telling the protagonist things aren't the gross vegetables she thinks but exotic foods from other planets
- Bad Kitty--This we originally got in Colorado and then checked out again here...oh my gosh so funny...the only thing is it doesn't put vegetables in the most favorable light. Essentially the kitty runs out of food and his owner wants him to eat an alphabet's worth of vegetables and because of this he (the kittly) turns into an alphabetically bad kitty. THEN, the owner comes home with tasty stuff (A to Z again...eg Buffalo Burritos, Baked Zebra Ziti, Shark Sushi, etc) and the kitty is then good, from A to Z. Love the kitty. He's so, so bad when he's bad...
- The Princess and the Peas--Another book about picky eaters, I love the rhymes and I love the little house in the woods the little girl lives in with her dad and rabbits. Because she doesn't like peas, they decide she's a princess (remember The Princess and the Pea?) and gets sent to the castle to live
- I Want to Be a Cowgirl--A big-city girl wants to be a cowgirl...love how this one ends...
Been having lots of fun reading to those kiddos. It's my new strategy in the evenings to get them to sleep... (jury's still out on if it's working or not...)
XOXO
Grace in Small Things, April 10, 2014
Hi Everyone!
Gosh, I feel like lately I'm either posting like crazy to try and catch up or not posting at all. A million excuses for neglecting this space...the regular overwork, not sleeping well, dealing in weird ways with my dog's death (which has brought a lot of other stuff to the surface), etc. etc. But mostly I think it's my kids are changing their sleep schedule, often up at the crack of dawn and so some time I used to have to myself in the morning has evaporated. On the plus side, I get more time with my kids. :) Naps are also getting shorter and shorter, some days pretty much nonexistent.
And also, something I always struggle with here...I want to be honest in this space...like right now, I am tired all the time, my "TO DO" list is way longer than what can realistically get accomplished, I'm feeling burnt out at work, my dog dying sucked, what happened with our daughter dying still hurts in a way I can't even begin to describe, I think about it every day...what happened with my brother dying too, for that matter, and the anniversary of that is coming up at the end of the month. But...I just don't want to talk about all that stuff because it's better for me if I just put it to the side and say, "look at all the good, Luke and Zo and my husband and my family and we have work and a beautiful home, I like where we live, and I only work part time and get to spend so much time with the kids, etc., etc." I really admire people who can write honestly about hardship and pain, and I don't want to make it seem like everything is sunshine and roses over here, but I have to focus on the positive to keep going.
Anyway, a long prologue to some notes about what is lovely in my life right now:
1) It felt like summer here today. I went to the zoo with the kids this morning. I wore a T-shirt and shorts...no sweatshirt over the top for what felt like the first time in forever. We had all the windows wide open all day. Ahhhhhhh...
2) We have this 2-story wall in our living room and we're essentially making it into a giant peice of art. Textured tiles are going up and it's been such a challenge for everyone involved to figure out how to make them stay, but it looks like they've found a solution. And the wall is going to look SO COOL. The stuff we're doing to our living room/dining room, I just love it. It's making the house feel cool and artsy and ours.
3) I ordered some bikinis online from Roxy the other day...where I used to get all my swimsuits back when I lived in California and went surfing every day. With IVFs and pregnancies it's been years--years--since I could wear a bikini. I've worked really hard (CrossFit and Paleo) to get my body back to normal and I'm almost there and that's really gratifying. Also, I am SO EXCITED about summer. My goal is to get up every morning and put on a swimsuit under my clothes, because I'll be getting in the pool every single day.
4) We got the best new book at the library the other day, it's called Duck, Duck Moose and the kids can't get enough of it. It's been a while since we got a really good new book. It's so silly and fun, with a moose that's just a tornado wrecking everything in his path, and the ducks who live with him loving him anyway. The kids always do "Moose Face!" before we read it, which is making a funny face with your hands put up like moose antlers on the top of your head.
5) The kids have been wanting "Rainbow Connection" (Luke: "Mommy, sing Rainbow con-nection please?") as their bedtime song almost every night lately. (I love this Willie Nelson rendition). Reminds me of my childhood. Makes me happy.
And speaking of happy, my daughter says, "Sissy happy!" almost every day, and Luke generally chimes in with, "Luke's happy too!" And I say--when it's true and it almost always is--"Awwww, you guys, that's great. Mommy's happy too."
How can you not be with those little sweethearts to hang out with, you know?
XOXO
Library Books We Love
Hi Everyone! Happy Thursday!
My kids love, love, love books. And as a cost-savings measure (and to get us out of the house on a regular basis), a lot of what we read are library books. The kids pick their own new batch every Tuesday (although sometimes we hold favorites over a week or two). Because they pick, we get a totally random assortment, over half of which on any given week I don't particularly like. Lately we've gotten a lot of good books, though, and I wanted to share. And so without further ado:
- Uncle Bigfoot--A kid's uncle comes to visit and the big question is...Is he a bigfoot? The evidence goes both ways. The cool thing about this book is his parents are totally into stuff like bigfoot, they have books on their shelves about crop circles and vampires, there are family vacation pictures from Roswell, etc. And you never really get the answer as to whether the uncle is a bigfoot or not, which is cool
- Pillow Pup--Super cute illustrations and rhyming text about a dog and a cute little girl trying to lay claim to a pillow. When you ask Luke what he wants to read, as often or not he'll say, "Pillow Pup!!!" at the top of his voice
- Monster Mess--This is one we probably shouldn't have taken back to the library on Tuesday, as Sissy keeps asking for it, and then when I don't have it she says, "Monster Mess hiding!" It's a book about a monster who cleans up a little boy's room in the dead of night. It's taught the kids words like "Yikes!" and "Ick!" This is my favorite of the bunch...may need to become part of our permanent collection
- Airplanes--I can't find this online anywhere, it's an older book with photographs and descriptions of airplanes. I got this before I went to Boston to try to explain to the kids what I was doing. "Momma's going to fly on a big plane," I'd tell them. "Momma's going to Boston." Sissy would say, "Sissy fly big plane." And, "Luke come too." "Someday," I'd tell them. I think it'll be fun to take them on an airplane trip one of these days, knock on wood...
- Chicken and Cat--Pictures only, a story about a cat coming to NYC to visit his friend chicken. I don't know how I feel about just-picture books in general, but I really like this one. It's fun to make up a slightly different story each time
- Firefighters A to Z--The kids have been obsessed with firefighters since we went to the firehouse a few months ago. This book was a big hit
- "No" Said Joe--This book's fun because each page the little boy either says, "No!" or "Yes!" and Luke especially likes to narrate that part of the story (always with great enthusiasm...it's so cute...
- No Fits, Nilson--A little girl, Amelia, and her gorilla (real-looking throughout the story, but he's a stuffed animal at the end) and how they control their temper tantrums. I especially love the illustrations here...Amelia has the cutest outfits and accessories, and she has bangs which are soooooo adorable. (Sissy now has bangs like Amelia)
- Meet Wild Boars--Horace, Doris, Boris and Morris are terrible house guests. I love the humor in this book...it's for adults as much as kids
- Once a Mouse--A story of a man turning a mouse into a cat a dog a tiger, until the mouse gets too big for his britches. A simple story with a good moral
I'll do a review again once we have another good batch of books on our hands...
Also, I've been thinking about playing around with writing some children's books myself (in all my spare time, ha, ha, ha)...something I've never tried...think it might be fun...
XOXO
"Into the Castle"
Hi Everyone! Happy Thursday!
The kids are picking their own library books these days. (Which, in reality, involves them going to a shelf in the kids section and pulling books off at random.)
This past week, we've come across our first must-buy-this-book-because-there-will-be-mutiny-in-the-ranks-if-we-don't selection.
It's called Into the Castle, and it's about 3 kids, a dog and a horse going in search of a monster, which (spoiler alert) they find at the end. I swear we are reading this book 50 times a day right now. And the funny thing is, Sissy especially is scared by it...she won't read it unless she's snuggled up close so you can protect her from the monster. But every time when the story is over, she says, "Again!" Luke's the same way. I keep thinking, "Oh man, these kids are going to be scared to death someday of scary movies and roller coasters and the like, and they are going to go to/on them anyway."
Nothing like seeing little personalities shining through...love it.
XOXO
Pregnancy Weeks 18/19
Hi Everyone!
I'm 20 weeks pregnant as of yesterday...halfway...yippee!
How I'm feeling: Much better, but still nauseous often and very tired by the end of the day most days. Sleeping OK some nights and not others. I had what I assume was the flu a week or so ago...I though it was just the pregnancy, but then why was I throwing up all the time again and headache and just generally awful and then everyone in my house except my husband had it too and my parents who I am visiting both came down with it. So that was no fun.
Also some days really feeling my belly stretch, which doesn't hurt exactly, but doesn't feel great either.
Also am getting totally overwhelmed/emotional about once a week...like lying on the floor sobbing for no good reason (other than the kids are teething and a handful right now but that's true every day and usually I'm fine) emotional which is what happened today...two little kids and pregnancy is just so HARD. I was reading the other day about how women are expected to be superwomen these days, and part of that is acting like everything we're doing is a piece of cake, and I really try to do that as much as I can (two 17-month-olds and a really tough pregnancy as far as not feeling well through it and a stressful job and everything else...yeah, no big deal, is how I usually try to be.) But really, the truth is it IS a big deal, it's hard, and I love my life and all I've been blessed with but right now with so many constant demands...it's hard.
What I'm looking forward to: Our scan next week (postponed because I'm out of town)...really excited to find out if we're having a boy or a girl. This whole pregnancy is still feeling so abstract...hoping that knowing will make it more real...
What I'm worried about: Nothing really, other than the general, ever-present how-are-we-going-to-do-this-with-all-these-little-kids? worry.
What I'm reading/watching/listening to: Breaking Bad, again, man, that show is SO GOOD. Still working my way through Love in the Time of Cholera. Also started reading Making Babies: Stumbling Into Motherhood by Anne Enright...so good but really dense with meaning and insights...I feel like I need to read it just a little bit at a time. And I finally got to sit and read Vogue and Glamour...not by the pool like I've been dreaming about all summer (why can I not make that happen?) but so fun to curl up with those magazines, which are my guilty pleasure. I got an iPAD for my birthday (thanks Mom and Dad!) and it's so fun to read magazines and books on that thing. Oh, and is it wrong that I'm a grown-up and I love Katy Perry? I love her new song "Roar," can't get it out of my head...
What I'm doing for me: My mom watched the kids the other day and I got a pedicure and a massage and a chiropractic adjustment...I felt like a new woman...amazing what a few hours like that does for me. I've also been letting a lot of stuff go (like posting here) during a really busy stretch of work and while I'm on vacation...feels good to expect a little less of myself...
So overall all is well...
Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!
XOXO
"No Regrets Parenting"
Hi Everybody! Happy Wednesday!
PAIL has a little book club going on that I'm participating in this month. The book is called "No Regrets Parenting" by Dr. Harley Rotbart. There was a list of questions submitted by participants, and I'm going to use those questions as a framework for my discussion of the book. And so, without further ado:
- What, if anything, did you find particularly useful about this book? I love the premise of this book, which is to spend time with your kids and really live every minute of their childhood, so once they are gone you have "no regrets." I haven't really seen that idea spelled out before, and it was useful for me to gel some of my thinking about parenting. On the not-so-useful side, this book also played into two of my biggest fears, namely: 1) How in the world am I going to let these kids go when they are 18? I love them so much, can't imagine life without them (although I probably will still be part of their life, I know, it's just not the same) and 2) Should I be spending every waking minute with my kids? Is my working part time harming them? This book talks so much about spending all the time you can with your kids, and I already feel guilty sometimes for working...
- How did this book influence how you think about parenting or how you approach busyness? This book pretty much just reinforced what I've been thinking, which is time with the kids is good and it can be totally unstructured and be fine. My day is so busy, my "to do" list a mile long, but kid time comes first so from 7 AM to 11 AM I'm pretty much solely with/100% focused on the kids...ditto for 5 PM to 8 PM and all weekend.
- What parts of this book do you disagree with and why? This book stated right up front that it wasn't intended to help people figure out ways to get time for themselves, but I wish that had been addressed. The book makes it seem like you should do your job and spend time with your kids and that's it. That's what I'm doing now, pretty much, and maybe that's as it should be, but I really would like to figure out a way to have a little life of my own--just a tiny bit of "me time"--as well.
- The author keeps talking about time, time time with your kids. I know a lot of us at PAIL have young toddlers, and I’m wondering what others do with their kids in this age range. Sometimes when I have the whole weekend, at some point I feel like I run out of ways to keep everyone entertained. This was actually my question, and I love, love, love spending time with my twins but I do sometimes feel like I run out of ideas. They're 16 months old and the only real structured things we have are story hour on Tuesday mornings and Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings. Other than that, here's my list of go-to ideas, but I'd love to hear more: Reading (but there are only so many times you can read "Curious George and the Puppies"), playing in the yard, going to the grassy park and running around in the grass, going to the playground and sliding down the slides and/or swinging on the swings, pool time on the weekends, having them "help" me (eg, this morning it took us an hour and a half to make enchiladas for dinner, something it would otherwise have taken me half an hour to do. They also helped take the laundry, piece by piece, to the laundry room this evening. Not very efficient, either of these tasks, but we spend the time together and I know they are learning tons and we have the time), coffee shop for bagels, errands (although this can be a bit challenging with twins), playing with their toys...help...I need more ideas!
- What kinds of things do people do to “double dip” as is discussed in this book? I like to take the kids for walks in their stroller...I get exercise, they get fresh air, we end up at a park where they can run around...everybody wins. And as soon as they are old enough to ski/snowboard I want to start going to the mountain with them...
- Do you have child activity limits or do you let your child sign up for everything like the “potpourri” parent described? If your kid(s) is (are) young, what are your plans? We plan to hugely limit what our kids sign up for, because we want to spend lots of unstructured time with them and keep our lives from becoming too chaotic. What we're thinking to start is to sign Luke and Zo up for ballet and karate (both activities for both of them)...and then things will evolve according to their interests but we feel very strongly about not having our kids over scheduled.
- How do you make time for yourself if you are focusing on spending time with your children and keeping up a demanding career like the author describes? Hahahahahaha..... No, seriously, I am trying to do better, spending a night or two a week doing something creative after the kids go to bed. And also my husband is great about watching them if asked, so I'm trying to plan some evening/weekend things like a yoga class or a pedicure. It's really hard--this trying to make time for yourself is what I'm finding most challenging about motherhood right now...
- Frequently people tell parents to “enjoy every minute” while their kids are little, and at times this book has that sort of feeling. What do you think about this advice and how can you make it practical as a part of your life? I think it's good advice. I do try to enjoy every minute, although sometimes it's easier than others. (Morning sickness isn't a big help in this regard.) I try to be very present and not do email/internet/talk on the phone/etc. while I'm with the kids. I try to plan fun and meaningful activities for us. I try to take lots of pictures and write about the things we do here on my blog so when I look back and it's all a big blur I can see that this time was made of lots of leisurely minutes/hours/days and I did what I could to make it special.
- How do you keep track of your child’s activities? Do you find it helpful or hard to see what you might be missing? My kids are young so this isn't really and issue...
Overall, I enjoyed this book, and liked some of the concrete suggestions that it had. It also helped me to reframe things a little for the better...for example, I do baths and bedtime ritual 99% of the time, and I used to kind of feel like, "Why am I the one who always has to do this?" But the truth is I love doing it. I love spending that time with my kids. What else would I be doing if I wasn't doing that? Cleaning up after dinner (which my husband and mother-in-law so graciously do every night)? Getting in another hour's worth of work? Working on my endless list of chores/phone calls/organizational tasks/errands? It's not a burden to be with my kids--it's not something that's keeping me from other things--it's exactly what I want to be doing. Because I know how fast the time is going to go and how much I'm going to miss doing things like baths when the kids start wanting to do it themselves instead. This book helped to clarify things like that in my mind and for that alone it was worth the read.
XOXO
Image Credit: No Regrets Parenting.
Kid's Library Book Review, Vol. 1
Hi Everyone! Happy Wednesday!
Do you all go to the library? I think it's the best thing in the world, especially for kids. We go regularly and check out a stack of kids books, for the most part chosen at random, and it's so great because that way I can find some books for the kids that I love, and the ones I don't like so much...well, no big deal because it didn't cost any money to check them out.
I have very specific preferences when it comes to kids books, I've come to find. I want them to be funny for the adults reading them, too. Modern (recently published) book in general tend to resonate better with me. Cool illistrations are important. Dinosaurs and monsters have figured prominently, for some reason.
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to review the stacks as they come and go, so without further ado, last week's stack:
- Monster Hug!--Super cute story about 2 monsters hanging out all day. And there's a surprise ending, as you don't know they are little kids until the end and that totally changes the whole story looking back on it. Love surprise endings. This book's a keeper
- If You Were a Penguin--Kids can read this book to learn about different kinds of penguins. Straight-up educational books are not really my thing, though
- Mad at Mommy--I picked this up because the drawing on the cover was cute and because of the title I thought it would be funny. But it was just kind of this depressing story about a bunny feeling like his mom doesn't give him enough attention. It's originally a Japanese story...perhaps something gets lost in translation...
- Dinosaur vs the Library--LOVE LOVE LOVE this book about a little kid dinosaur encountering other animals on his way to the library and trying to get them to roar instead of moo or peep, for instance. And then at the library he's told to use his inside roar. And then there's the mystery of will he be able to make it through story time without roaring? This is a book I'd love to have in our permanent library
- Silvie--A flamingo who eats various things and turns the color of those things. Didn't love
- Big and Bad--A pretty heavy-handed retelling of The three Little Pigs where the Big Bad Wolf is causing social and environmental destruction and must be taken care of. A little too political/too much of agenda for my taste
- Wonder Bear--A picture book which I'm not sure I'm generally fond of. A cool, very unique illustrative style but not much of a story
We're working our way through a new stack now that includes "Dinosaur vs Bedtime"...stay tuned for another set of reviews.
XOXO
Image credit: Amazon.com.
Ideal Bookshelf
Hi Everyone! Happy Monday and happy New Year's Eve! My husband's best friend is in town...he's going to babysit while my husband and I go out for a swanky dinner (and I have a new sparkly dress to wear, yay!) and then I'm going to stay home with the kids while they go out on the town. Perfect. Oh and I'm trying to track down some sparklers because I want to do sparklers with the kids before bed...
Anyway...
Have you guys heard about Ideal Bookshelf? They paint a customized painting for you of your favorite books/the books that have most influenced you...I soooooooo want to do this. Part of the fun would be choosing the books, don't you think? (It's also fun to look at the prints they have available to see what others have chosen.) There would be a lot of consideration as far as what would go on my shelf, but I know for sure the following would be there:
- Love in the Time of Cholera
- Anna Karenina
- Holy Land
- The Elegance of the Hedgehog
- I Capture the Castle
- Gilead
- Cowboys Are My Weakness
- The Namesake
- The Fountainhead
What would for sure be on your shelf?
Hope you all have something fabulous planned for tonight! Happy New Year!
XOXO
Image Credit: Ideal Bookshelf.
Oh, and The Drifters. And Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
The "B" Book
Over at my Mom and Dad's this morning, in the living room working and my mom's with the kids in the kitchen. When she starts reading to Luke, I can't help but stop and listen...she has the books she used to read to me when I was little...makes me feel like I'm a little kid again, listening to her read the stories she read to me over and over and over.
"Big brown bear, blue bull, beautiful babboon, blowing bubbles, biking backwards..."
Happy Wednesday!
XOXO
"The Conflict"
Note: This post has been written as part of PAIL's August Book Club. If you don't know about PAIL, check them out here.
I recently read--with great interest--"The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women" by Elisabeth Badinter. (As an aside, sitting in our backyard after the kids are asleep, drinking a beer in the warm evening air and reading an actual book has been such a huge treat...it's the first time I've done this since the babies were born.) In a nutshell, the author claims that today's "natural" parenting ideal makes it impossible for women to have a life outside of being a mother, which in her opinion is a bad thing.
There's a positive and a negative that have stayed with me:
The Positive
This is the first I've read of the current ideal being held up for motherhood (breastfeeding, attachment parenting, home with the kids instead of working, co-sleeping, etc.) just being one way of looking at things, not gospel. That maybe there are other ways to be a good mom, and it's not just do it that way, and everything you do that comes up short is a failure on your part.
This is something I've been thinking about in regards to the feminism I grew up with: that to deprioritize/postpone a family in favor of a career (which is what I was encouraged to do) is not the only path to take.
I am very susceptible to these types of messages, apparently. With the whole feminism bit, I felt like I had to put my career first, even though that's not what my heart wanted. And now with the kids, I've been feeling bad about where I come up lacking in the motherhood department because I have chosen to work (part time, from home), but maybe I don't have to buy into all the dogma the second time around. Buying into the whole feminism thing has caused me regret; I don't have to go through that again with not living up to an ideal of motherhood I don't 100% agree with, anyway.
(Another aside: Can I just tell you how much I hate the preachiness of the natural/attachment parenting crowd? I like a lot of their ideas, I am with them in theory and a lot of my parenting follows their advice, but, for example, I tried everything humanly possible and can't breastfeed my twins 100% of the milk they need...and I'm sick of being made to feel guilty for that, because it wasn't my choice...I'm doing the best I can with what is physiologically possible...I hate all the messages that I'm short-changing my kids because they are not exclusively breastfed.)
The Negative
It's not just this book, but why does everyone, especially feminists, always assume that women don't WANT to be home with their kids 24/7? That given a choice, every woman wants to work? The author of this book makes it seem like staying home with the kids is the easy, expected (although undesirable) choice, when in reality it often seems to be an unaffordable/unsupported luxury. I'd love to stay home with our kids and not work, but my husband and I want a standard of living that necessitates me working at least a little. (We could live on my husband's salary--many people make it work on a lot less--but we want to be able to take the kids on trips, for example. And be able to save for college. And retire at some point.) And the way I've been able to work isn't that onerous (I'm not working that many hours, and half the time I have a kid on my lap). Besides the money aspect, in my crowd (college educated, successful, urban professionals), there is plenty of support for returning to work after having a kid or two, pretty much zero for wanting to be a stay-at-home-mom.
Bottom Line
This book made me feel better about some of my choices, about what I feel in my gut is right for me and my family. I guess that's where the value in reading was for me...in me doing a better job of recognizing that just because somebody says I'm supposed to raise my kids a certain way, it doesn't mean they know better than I do about what's right for my life and my family.
XOXO
Top Five: Kids Books
Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!
Today I wanted to talk about books. Kids books. Luke and Zoey loooooove books...a guaranteed way to quiet them down if they are at all fussy is a story or two. And we've definitely got our favorites, which right now include:
1. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. An oldie but goodie (first published in 1939). Love the Parisian setting (can't wait to take my kids to Paris...we'll make sure to visit all the landmarks in this book), love the rhyming story, love how sweet all the characters are. My friend who gave me this book at one of my showers commented that it reminds her of my writing, which I thought was such a sweet compliment.
2. Stuck by Oliver Jeffers. Love the pictures. Love the handwritten words. And the story is so funny. You won't believe what ends up in the tree...the curious whale is my personal favorite.
3. I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen. The pictures are so great. And the story...you know, if someone took my hat, I would think maybe they were having a bad day, maybe they had a rough childhood, maybe they were cold and needed it. But the bear in the story...(SPOILER ALERT)...he just eats the guy who took his hat. My husband thinks this is hilarious...much more along the lines of how he would approach the problem.
4. Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown. Speaking of my husband, if you're a Star Wars fan and your son is named Luke, how can you not love this book? The picture of Darth Vader lying squished on the couch with his son asleep next to him is priceless.
5. Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton. This book is essentially a song a mother dog sings to her puppy, part of which is: "I love who you are, I love what you do." It's sooooooo sweet. I walk around singing this song to my kids to a made-up tune, even when we're not reading the book.
So anyway, that's some of what we're reading these days.
Those of you with kids, what are your favorites right now? I think we're going to make an inaugural trip to the library next week, and I need a list! :)
Hope you all have a great weekend. Thanks for spending some time here this week.
XOXO
Henry James Says: "Feel"
Hi Everyone! Happy Thursday!
So I'm reading a book right now called Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, and something I read last night has really stuck with me, mostly because I am always being accused of feeling too much, of being overly emotional about everything, taking on everyone's pain as my own. (My husband calls this personality trait "being fuzzy"...his nickname for me is "fuzz.")
I'm not very accepting of this (being so emotional and feeling everything so deeply), and the people closest to me aren't really generally very happy about it, either. I am a lot of times trying to fight it, but sometimes I think fighting it is wrong and what I REALLY need to be doing is accepting myself the way I am.
That's why it was so nice to read this passage in the book last night. The author (Nafisi) is quoting from a letter Henry James wrote to a friend whose husband had been killed in WWI. James says:
"I am incapable of telling you not to repine and rebel, because I have so, to my cost, the imagination of all things, and because I am incapable of telling you not to feel. Feel, feel, I say--feel for all you're worth, even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live, especially to live at this terrible pressure, and the only way to honour and celebrate these admirable beings who are our pride and inspiration."
Nafisi adds: "In letters to friends, again and again he [James] urges them to feel. Feeling would stir up empathy and would remind them that life was worth living."
In other words, it's OK to be fuzzy. I'm not feeling bad about being fuzzy today...
XOXO
BTW, going to Denver early in the morning, so won't be posting again until Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend! And congrats to all the newly born babies and confirmed pregnancies out there...there are a lot this week...so very happy for all of you!!!
XOXO
I'm Officially Obsessed With Children's Books...And Wondering What Your Favorites Are
Hi Everyone!
Short post today...I'm trying to go off Zofran again and it SUCKS...seriously, what is up with bad nausea in Week 23 of my pregnancy?!?
Anyway, wanted to link you all to a list of children's books I found last night on the amazing blog Where the Lovely Things Are. (Getting up out of bed and reading blogs is good at 3 AM. Way better than laying in bed being mad about the fact I can't sleep.)
Click here for the list, entitled "Children's Books I'd Like to Receive for Christmas."
My dream present is for someone to box all these books up and put them under the tree. I sent my husband an email to that effect...we have a cash limit for gifts in effect, though, so I won't get them all, but maybe some...
And I've been meaning to ask...what are your favorite children's books? Would love to know...
Image Credit: Amazon.
What I've Been Reading
Hi Everyone!
It's been a long time since I've done a post like this, so I have a bit of a stack. Trying to figure out what to read next...insomnia is an issue these days and I need something fun and engaging, not too heavy for the middle of the night. And suggestions, please leave them in the comments. Thank you! :)
But anyway, back to what I've been reading over the past several months (from the bottom of the stack to the top):
- I Love Your Style, Amanda Brooks--I actually read this on bed rest after my FET way back in July, and it was the perfect, light read for then. The pictures are wonderful. Highly recommended if you like this kind of thing
- When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets or Quads, Barbara Luke and Tamara Eberlin--Obviously, only of interest if you're in the same boat I am, but I have found this book indispensible, especially as far as eating/weight gain guidelines and how to be careful and not overexert yourself (with exercise, travel, running around being an overachiever, etc). What this book had to say were things I needed to hear. It seems like so much out there is just opinion/what is currently in vogue...the recommendations in this book are based on solid medical research and thus I am very comfortable with them...I feel like my pregnancy is/is going to be so much healthier because of this book
- Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Erie--I cannot begin to describe all the ways I love this book. It's about a young boy in a wealthy family around the time Castro came to power and his memories of that time (it's memoir, not fiction). The stories and the historical significance make it such an amazing read. The way it is constructed is also really unusual and I really liked it...it's readable just for the style alone. It was a little slow getting started, but once I got into it, I couldn't put it down...
- The Tender Bar, J. R. Moehringer--Another memoir and a very engaging read. About a boyhood on Long Island, a boy whose father had abandoned him, was living with his mom and extended family. One of my favorite parts was when he's 9 or 10 and he and his mom move out of state and he gets sent back to live with Grandma and Grandpa for the summer. His uncle also lives in the house, and he (the uncle) and his alcoholic friends from the bar start taking him (the kid) to the beach, and it just seems like the kind of situation where something bad is going to happen...I mean all these low-lifes can't be good for this young boy, right? But they are...they take really good care of him, watch over him and teach him things and become like a real family to him. There is sometimes love and kindness in the most unexpected places...
- Swamplandia!, Karen Russell--A story about a girl whose mother dies, leaving her and her brother and sister and dad with an alligator farm/attraction. Loved the weirdness of this book, and sometimes the language was beautiful and amazing, but overall did not like it as much as I wanted to. I read this right after The Tender Bar, and towards the end is the same sort of situation in terms of when it starts all you can think are bad things are going to happen--where the young girl goes off with a strange man into the swamp and I kept thinking oh, this can't be good and it wasn't...I was hoping I was wrong, but nope...
- The Road to Coorain, Jill Ker Conway--Another memoir (I'm loving memoirs right now), this one about a girl growing up in the Australian outback and then in Sydney. I really liked this book. Somewhere in the middle her brother is suddenly killed...I didn't know that was part of the book, and it was interesting to see how she handled it...it wasn't easy for her just like it hasn't been easy for me...
- The Immortal Life on Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot--This is a book about a line of cells called HeLa that has been used for medical research for decades. The cells were taken from a woman who was not informed of the fact and not compensated. Interesting read
- Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann--Oh, how I love this book. It's the story of a bunch of New Yorkers whose lives are all intertwined, about love and loss. I couldn't put it down. It starts with an event that really happened that I'd never heard of before, a man walking on a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center back in the early '70s. So interesting to read something about the World Trade Center that didn't have to do with 9/11. There is also a documentary about this guy called Man on Wire that's really good (although I pretty much love all documentaries...will watch one on almost any topic)...in the documentary one of the coolest things was...you know, the police of course, were trying to get this guy off the tightrope, but one of them, interviewed later, he was essentially saying, you know, I had to get him off there, that was my job, but what he was doing was so incredible, I sure didn't want to...
- The Blind Assain, Margaret Atwood--Really wanted to like this book. Really tried to get into it. Got to page 48 and then just could not make myself pick it up after that. Finally gave up. It's the only book in my stack that I didn't read, which has to be some kind of record...I am the queen of starting books and not finishing them
Have any of you read any of these? What did you think?
XOXO
What I'm Reading (And the Obsessive 2WW Symptom Watch)
I've read some really good books lately, after not being able to get into much of anything all spring. Here's what I've recently been reading (or in some cases, trying to read):
- Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin. The writing here is just spectacular. And the way the story was put together...sublime. It's about a black boy in Harlem in the early part of last century, flashing back to other adult family members and how they got to be where they got to be. It's also strongly about religion, a theme which I'm not that interested in, but again...the writing was so incredible...once I was done I wanted to start again right away.
- Half a Life, Darin Strauss. This is a memoir by a man who killed one of his classmates in an accident while he was in high school. It's a quick read...I was done within twenty-four hours. Again, incredible writing, and a really interesting construction, with snippets related to the accident told in chronological order but no real narrative like you generally think of books having. It absolutely works, though. This was incredibly sad but incredibly moving to read. The author is so incredibly honest, that's what I love most. It also gave me a solid idea of how to change the ending to something of my own I've written, where I've never really felt like the ending was quite right.
- The Collected Stores of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read this book the summer after my Freshman year in college, when I was on the East coast living with a huge Italian family in New Jersey (one of my friends in the dorm had brought me home with her). A great summer, but talk about a culture shock! Loved the writing and the stories then, but could only get about halfway through this time...funny how things you read touch you differently at different points in your life...I think the characters just feel a little too young and frivilous to me now. One thing I thought was really funny...you know how everyone is saying with the Internet and cable and social media and video games kids/teenagers/young adults these days have no attention span? Well, Fitzgerald was saying the exact same thing about the youth of the 1920s...
- Elvis and Me, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley. I love Elvis. I spent a lot of time with my dad's parents growing up and my Grandpa played Elvis for me all the time, so it's such a nostalgic thing for me. This book read like a long US Weekly article...fun! Priscilla was so young when she met Elvis (she was 14, he in his early 20s, I believe). And he had such old-fashioned Southern ideas about a woman's place...that the world revolved around the man and the woman needed to do as she was told. My late father-in-law, whom I adored, by the way, had the same outlook on life...how my progressive, let's-do-everything-together-I-don't-mind-splitting-things-50/50 husband came out of that household, I'll never know
- Letters of E.B. White. These letters are lovely. This is a glimpse into a literary life, and a very egalitarian marriage. I'm only about halfway through...it's a very slow and quite book...I think I'll keep it on my bedside table and read a few letters at a time until I'm finished.
Anyone have any reading recommendations for my next stack of books?
And in other news, since I've decided to embrace obsessing about pregnancy symptoms, here's today's report:
- Oh, Lord, it was hard to get out of bed this morning. So tired. I got a pretty good night's sleep, too. Tired all day, actually, napping again this afternoon...
- Also so thirsty upon waking...but that could easily have been due to the huge hamburger my husband made me for dinner last night...
- I have kind of this calm feeling that I'm pregnant...with this little undercurrent of knowing that it's certainly possible that I'm not...and I don't want to find out that I'm not...ugh, I am so incredibly tired of dealing with disappointment...
Hope everyone has a lovely Tuesday! :)
XOXO
What I'm (For the Most Part Not) Reading
Hi Everyone!
Today we've got another little installment on what I've been reading (or, more accurately, not reading). Why am I having such a hard time getting into books lately? Is it permanent? Is the fertility stuff weighing too heavily on my mind? Am I too busy and it's hard to sit and relax and read? I don't know, but I used to loooooove reading, and I'm going to keep trying. Maybe some nice warm summer weather and some free time to lounge on our back patio will make a difference.
I'm still on my library kick, which may also be why I'm not making a huge effort to read a book all the way through if it doesn't catch my attention (I didn't pay for it, I don't feel as much of an obligation).
Here's how things went with my current stack of books:
- 29 Gifts, Cami Walker. My mom gave me this book on Mother's Day (how sweet of her is it to give me a gift on that day?) It's the only one in the pile I actually read. The writing/book itself was OK, but what I really liked was the idea behind it...that if you give gifts (doesn't have to be things that cost money) every day it will put you in a place of abundance and gratitude. It's a cool idea to consciously give a gift every day for 29 days...something I'd like to try. Pages read: All.
- Still Life With Chickens, Catherine Goldhammer. The subtitle of this book is 'Starting Over in a House by the Sea,' and, I don't know, I thought it would be about moving somewhere cool and home renovation and finding your way in a new world. But instead...it was about chickens. Which shouldn't have surprised me, granted, but there was way too much chicken for me to keep reading...I just wasn't that interested. Pages read: ~50 and then I skimmed the next 50, but there was no end to the chickens in sight.
- Salt: A World History, Mark Kurlansky. I thought I'd really like this book, but it ended up being kind of dry. Pages read: 35.
- Stuart: A Life Backwards, Alexander Masters. Really cool writing and a really cool set-up (the narrator is telling someone's [Stuart's] biography, but from when he met Stuart back to Stuart's childhood, so you have to stick around in theory and see what happened to make Stuart so messed up). I'm not sure why I put this down...maybe I just found it depressing reading about someone who was homeless, in and out of prison, had such a hard life, that's what this book was about and I need shiny happy things right now, I think. Pages read: ~100.
- The Carrie Diaries, Candace Bushnell. My BFF recommended this book and I usually love what she recommends, but this I just couldn't get past a certain point. Too frivolous, I think, although I usually don't shy away from frivolous if I'm in the right mood. I will say I read the first few chapters relaxing with a glass of wine and that was nice, but after that first night, could not get into it. Pages read: 144.
- The Women, T.C. Boyle. Didn't even get to this and it's time for my library books to go back...maybe I'll check it out again. Pages read: 0.
As always, reading recommendations are welcome. :)
XO
Am I Over Reading in General, or Just Fiction?
The library books I've been trying to read...
Writing about Seattle's library made me miss library trips. So I went to my local library a few weeks back (while I was still pregnant...I figured a stack of books would be good for me as sick as I was feeling and as much time as I was spending in bed). I checked out the above books based on recommendations in the media/from blogs/from friends. Didn't do so well getting through the stack, which I read from the bottom up (most frothy to most literary). Here's how it went:
- Mini Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella. This series is so sweet and light, but this book I couldn't get into. Too repetitive? A totally bratty little kid? Not sure. Pages read: ~50.
- Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld. I think I just wasn't really into reading about high school students. Pages read: ~25.
- My Hollywood, Mona Simpson. Mothers who pawn their kids off on nannies and don't seem at all happy with their kids or their marriages. Pages read: ~100 because the writing was interesting, but I'm just not good with reading books whose characters I dislike.
- The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, Reif Larsen (and you can see the book's cool website here). A really sweet story, interestingly written with lots of footnotes, side notes, notes in the margins, diagrams, etc. Got it because of this blog post. Best thing I've read in a while. Would love to write a book like this. Pages read: All.
{Miscarriage happened about here.}
- Loving Frank, Nancy Horan. A woman who leaves her husband and kids. Could not get into it, but that may not have been the book's fault. Pages read: ~15.
- Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro. Couldn't even start, my record with all these other books was so dismal. Pages read: 0.
I used to read voraciously, and now it's so very hard for me to get into anything. I think it might just be novels that I'm having such a hard time with, though. I'm going to get a stack of nonfiction books and see how that goes. I'll report back.
Anyone want to recommend a good nonfiction book I could pick up?
XO
Missing Seattle: The Seattle Public Library
Rained yesterday, and is supposed to again all week, which is making me miss Seattle, so I think this week's posts are going to be about that city. I spent lots of time there with my grandparents, my dad's parents, as a child, and lived there twice--once right after college, and once for six months after leaving Southern California and before moving back to Colorado. And there's a good chance we'll live there again someday. The cool, dreary weather does get to me after a while, but that's probably something trips somewhere sunny could take care of. I've always felt a huge affinity for the city.
One of the things I miss is the public library, which is right downtown and across the street from the fabulous hotel where my husband worked, the Hotel Vintage Park. I don't know too much about architecture, but I love, love, love cool modern buildings like this--I first saw an exhibit about it at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art while it was being built, couldn't wait to see it live. And it works so perfectly in Seattle, letting in every scrap of available light. Many afternoons I spent on the top floor in front of the windows, waiting for my husband to be done with work so we could go do something together.
And, they have the greatest online check-out system ever. You just put the books you want to read on a list, and then they are all sitting together under your name in the pick-up area. That system spoiled me...I've had trouble easing into using the library here because it doesn't have it. On the other hand, it also seems to be where I started to have a hugely short attention span when it comes to reading--reading the first few pages or chapter of a book, failing to get engaged, and then putting it aside to start on another. I've been finding it really hard to get into books the past few years, especially novels. So much of what I'm reading just doesn't seem interesting/relevant.
Anyway, in my dream Seattle life, part of my weekly routine involves a trip to the public library.
Image Credit: fschroiff.
An Artsy Weekend...I'm a Happy Girl
So if I still lived in Seattle or San Francisco, or were in Boston, a weekend like this would be easy to put together. But not that much happens in Grand Junction, so having all this stuff in one weekend was such a treat.
I love the arts and don't usually get enough. One of the hardest things about living in a small town. Grateful for weekends like this.
Positive Thinking and IVF
So here’s what happened last summer with IVF cycle #3:
A few weeks before everything kicked into high gear, I went to an acupuncture appointment. The acupuncturist said to me, “There’s no medical reason you can’t be pregnant. Your only problem is that you’re not happy. Think positive and be happy, and you’ll get pregnant, no problem.”
First off, this was terrible advice to give me with only a couple weeks to go before treatment. Also, my fertility clinic had told me there were five different medical things wrong with me. And I was trying my best to be happy…how was I going to turn things around in just a few weeks?
But I tried…oh, I tried. I tried thinking positive to the point of being delusional. I tried to be happy, although how you’re just supposed to magically be happy all of a sudden is something that’s always eluded me.
And then my cycle ended with a chemical pregnancy, which means that technically I got pregnant, but my body was unable to hold onto the baby.
And I blamed myself--clearly, I wasn’t happy enough and positive enough.
“What baby wants to stay inside a mom that’s not happy?” the acupuncturist had said to me. My not being able to buck up had killed that baby.
Those were dark weeks. The guilt was overwhelming. My deepest fears surfaced--that I shouldn’t be a mom, I wasn’t happy enough to be a mom, I’d be doing any child of mine a disservice by bringing him or her into the world.
I had let bad/scared/conflicting thoughts into my head. And because I wasn’t able to keep them out, everything was doomed. There was no use even trying again--every baby was going to die and each time it was going to be my fault.
And then a friend sent me a book called Bright Sided, by Barbara Ehrenreich. Once I read it, I felt so much better. The author’s talking about cancer here, but I think this applies absolutely to those dealing with infertility…just substitute “infertility” for “cancer” and “not getting/staying pregnant” for “cancer spreading” in the following passage:
“…without question there is a problem when positive thinking 'fails' and the cancer spreads or eludes treatment. Then the patient can only blame herself: she is not being positive enough; possibly it was her negative attitude that brought on the disease in the first place. At this point, the exhortation to think positively is ‘an additional burden to an already devastated patient,’ as oncology nurse Cynthia Rittenberg has written. Jimmie Holland, a psychiatrist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, writes that cancer patients experience a kind of victim blaming:
‘It began to be clear to me about ten years ago that society was placing another undue and inappropriate burden on patients that seemed to come out of the popular beliefs about the mind-body connection. I would find patients coming in with stories of being told by well-meaning friends, “I’ve read all about this—if you got cancer, you must have wanted it…” Even more distressing was the person who said, “I know I have to be positive all the time and that is the only way to cope with cancer--but it’s so hard to do. I know that if I get sad, or scared or upset, I am making my tumor grow faster and I will have shortened my life.”’”
I’m back at this fertility business again, in the middle of another cycle. And this time? I don’t care about being positive. I just want to stay calm, do what I can to not lose these weeks of my life to worry and stress and obsession over numbers and progress and statistical chances. I’m trying to have a good attitude, absolutely, trying not to go to that dark, scared place that is so, so close. But I think I can get through things this time without blaming myself, even if I’m once again not pregnant/without a baby at the end of all this.
The doctors are doing their job; they’re very good at their job. Aside from following their instructions exactly, it’s not up to me. I’m not going to cause this to succeed or fail.
Oh, and I’m not going back to that acupuncturist ever again.