raising a boy reader
5:53 pm | 2 Comments » |
I loved the library growing up. I still do.
I loved the titles and the books and cuddling into the big blue corderoy cushions on the floor and losing myself in other lives than my own.
The Borrowers, Heidi, Sarah Strong and Tall, The Wind In The Willows, Bed-Knobs and Broomsticks, The Wolves of Willouby Chase, Little Pear, The Incredible Journey….so many others.
But now that my son is beginning to love the library and take an interest in books I find myself at something of a loss.
Does anyone have a Boy Reading List I can borrow? Because beyond Encyclopedia Brown and The Hardy Boys, my mind kind of shuts down.
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September 3, 2008
bonne et heureruse semaine*
11:01 am | 1 Comment » |
I had insomnia last night, and cruised into work on three and one-quarter hours of sleep. My system never really recovered from the incredible not-sleeping baby (R still doesn’t like bedtime) and I’m (sorta) used to it. I drank a lot of bad coffee today at the hospital, and managed to keep everything straight. (Go me)
The trickiest part of my day today was when I picked up my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed kids from where they’ve been running outdoors! jumping! playing freely! , hoisting their exuberant butts into the car, and fielding the half-a-million questions that immediately begin as soon as I gripped the car wheel.
I’m glad they’re curious about their surroundings. But usually they’re both so wound up they talk over each other in their quest to be heard and understood, so I end up hearing things like:
‘Mom! My friend Ainsley-
has a new playstation-
….and Barney said-
how come I don’t have a tv-
and Dad come home for dinner tonight?-
….I found a cricket!-
Can we have cookies??
I played with the scooter -what, we have cookies?
and by the time I hit the highway there’s a subtle tic starting to beat under my right eye and all I can think about is
chocolate. (Angels sing)
And fifteen minutes to myself.
Mom? Did you have a good day?
Maybe only fifteen minutes of quiet, though…..
*As the little paper bit says, have a happy period. Such a lie.
1 Comment »
July 30, 2008
hopped up
7:38 pm | 2 Comments » |Today was a glorious sunshine-y day, full of blue skies and a nice breeze and cicadas droning out their message of hot. It’s hot. Hot today.
So today the kids ran through the sprinkler,
slid on the slip and slide,
kicked the other sprinkler (It’s a big inflatable ball that shoots water in spouts)
watered the garden,
ate popsicles with abandon,
helped me make meatballs,
ate a metric ton of raw carrots (gerrout of that! I’m cooking those!)
chased each other through the field on their bikes in giant swooping loops
made a small city of roadways and parking garages in the dirt of the driveway,
thundered up and down the stairs in search of things to take outside,
threw a frisbee around,
poked each other with dried fettuccine swords,
helped their dad pile wood,
and *still*
*still*
had enough energy to ask if we could practice hitting the tball before showers.
I live with two energized bunnies.
And I just want to know….where can I get me some of that go juice?
2 Comments »
July 29, 2008
library geek
7:39 pm | No Comments » |After work today, I sped out and drove down to the library. I had a little bit of time before I had to pick up my daughter, and since I was out of town last week, I needed new reading material.
I walked through the door and breathed deeply of that good library smell.
Wandering around? Sans children? Sounds like heaven.
On the way in, I spotted two of my favorite librarians. Feeling expansive and happy and sunshine-y, I trilled ‘Hell-LO!’ at them, not realizing how loud I was….
until everyone turned to look.
Nothing like interrupting everyone in their contemplation of good literature.
Oops.
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July 13, 2008
summer (doot de doot de doot do)
8:42 pm | No Comments » |Whew! Long time no blog!
Sorry about that. It seems summer makes everything get a little busier.
Let’s see – the foster cat? Yeah, she’s ours now. Her name is Lucy, and she eats a lot of cat food(seriously, she’s going to be a round shape with a kitty head and tail soon) and harasses the older cats and purrs a mile a minute when we pick her up.
We just got back from our first summer trip to the beach and soon I have a little vacation all by myself while B and the kids go to a cottage by a lake.
It’ll be my first time spending more than a night away from the kiddles and I’m not really sure how well it’s going to go.
Of course, I’ll be with neat people. And wine. (which-harrumph- might take a bit of the sting out of it)
See you in about a week!
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June 1, 2008
there’s a new face at my house
8:59 pm | No Comments » |
This is Minette, our foster cat. Except if my kids get their way she’ll either be Minou or Cookie.
And she can come to live at your house, if you’re ready to give a sweet, sweet kitty some love, food and a little shelter.
How sweet is she? Ten minutes after the SPCA dropped her off, she was purring and letting my three year old pick her up. Two hours later, she’d gone upstairs and slept on my son’s bed (thrilling him entirely.) Despite challenges from my two cats and barking from Jasper (the rocks-in-his-head Lab) she kept her cool and is right now (six hours after she was dropped off) in my bedroom on the trunk at the end of the bed, fast asleep.
She’s beautiful, isn’t she?
You can talk to someone about giving Minette a permanent home at 902-350-2444, or call that same number to volunteer to foster another kitty in need of a place to stay until someone adopts them. The shelter will pay for food, litter and any medical issues the animal has while it’s in your care. Fostering a cat (or a dog!) is a wonderful way to introduce your children to making the world a better place for companion animals and giving them an insight into the importance of finding animals the perfect home.
Besides, who could resist that face??
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May 30, 2008
pig and pepper and pull
7:37 pm | No Comments » |One of the things I brought from home when i moved here is a lithograph by Dali titled Pig and Pepper. It’s a surreal scene with different things going on – a pig sits in the top of a tree, butterflies flutter, a woman skips rope.
Most of the time I don’t notice it.
Except this week I found Rosey with her nose tilted up to it, leaning over the desk.
‘Mama, what are the birds?’
No, no, I said – those are butterflies. See?
And darned if she didn’t shake her head and point out something new, some (darn it) birds sitting on the branches of the tree, birds I’ve never seen before.
It’s kind of an apt analogy for parenting, I thought. They’re all birds we’ve never seen before.
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May 23, 2008
pocket protectors optional
9:23 pm | No Comments » |I squished the bug, the voice says triumphantly, and I muster up a smile and a very half-hearted whee! before busying myself at the computer again, thinking to myself “How long will this infatuation with this game last??”
My husband and I? Complete nerds. We just manifest it differently.
I’m usually on the computer. E-mailing, blogging, twittering, facebooking, ebaying, CNN-ing, occasionally studying, playing scrabulous, etsy-ing or flick’ring. There’s always something going on.
And, companionably, B sits on the couch and…..blows armies up. (With a new and bigger gun.) Or mutant zombies. (With the BIGGER gun.) Or finds the serum and saves the day. (With the BIGGER GUN.)
So while we’re really in one room, barely ten feet apart?
Our heads are in two different universes.
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May 6, 2008
may
9:58 am | No Comments » |Spring has come! While the days are sunny, the nights are still crisp and chill – terrific sleeping weather.
I like this time of year.
I like it even better now that the dreaded pestilence has left my house and the kids can play outside more often. Sunday it looked like a yard sale outside my home, with the chilluns dragging what seemed like every toy they own out to bake in the sudden sun.
A lot of ball chasing and bike riding going on.
As there should be.
And oh! Have you seen the sky?
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April 26, 2008
changing the playground
10:28 pm | No Comments » |
My son’s school playground doesn’t have a slide. Swings, yes, several different climby things, yes, monkey bars and soccer nets and woods to run in but no slide.
It was either deemed unsafe (too tall!) or taken out because of its age (or both, I suppose) and now the Parents Group has been raising money for new playground equipment.
Our big fundraiser today? A bottle drive. Posters went up all over town and notices were put in the paper. People who don’t save their bottles or don’t drink pop gave toonies and loonies. Very few people around here wouldn’t give something towards the school – supporting the kids, supporting our town.
We expected a good haul.
What we got was monstrous.And wonderful.
About an hour into it, we’d sent a load to the depot already and were quickly running out of room on the trailer we’d been filling with bags of sorted, counted 5-cent cans and bottles.
We ended up filling a dump truck. A dump truck, along with several pickup loads of glass bottles.
The total? From this little town?
Over a thousand dollars.
Margaret Mead was a wise old girl.
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