Random Friday: 24 weeks

24 weeks this week! Holy smokes. The Bug was born at 36 weeks so not so far to go. I was going to take a picture but I accidently left my camera at home.

I started a new series of posts over at the MadebyLisah blog. Each day (not counting weekends, I don't think) I'm planning to spotlight my favorite Etsy item of the day. Sure, a lot of them will be things I want, but some of them will just be cool things I run across. You should pop over there and subscribe so you don't miss anything.  And, if you're not a fan of the MadebyLisah Facebook page you totally should be, as I'm going to start offering specials over there too.

I ran out of coffee this week. Seriously.  Going grocery shopping today!

Today I only work until 12 because I have to work tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, both boys have annual checkups this afternoon, so no kid-free day for me.

Tomorrow we leave on our first camping trip of the year. I am pretty excited to go, but we still have a lot to do tonight to get ready.  What are your favorite camping snacks? I'm thinking chex mix and rice crispy treats. Are you planning anything special for the 3 day weekend?

Question for ya: if I buy laser printer labels for my ink jet printer, will that be a huge problem? I'm wanting to print a color graphic onto them, not just an address.

This video is so awesome.


What's new with you?
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Today's Reading List

Things have been crazy around here lately, which means I have a hard time focusing on any one thing. I thought you might be interested to see how this translates to my reading. The following is a list of books that I have read at least one chapter in the last week or so and that I completely plan to finish.

Forget You by Jennifer Echols

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube by Michelle Goodman (past due, but I can't renew it again and really want to finish!)

The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi by Elif Shafak

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 10) by Charlaine Harris (one week hold almost over, I'm on page 81)

Dakota Home (Dakota Series #2) by Debbie Macomber (no, have not read book 1)

It seems like I'm missing something.

How about you? Do you read more than one book at a time? I can't remember a time in my life where I only had one book started.

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Adventures in T-Ball

As I mentioned a month or so ago, this is the Pirate's first year of T-Ball. He was initially very excited to be signed up for it and took great pride in showing off his new cleats.  We had a handful of practices that were a bit of a struggle for him (and  Mike, who is coaching.) His attention span isn't quite ready for an hour or so of paying attention, and we've really been struggling to get him to participate. The first game went ok and we were encouraged. The second game was a disaster of epic proportions.  Saturday we had our first day game and it was terrific. We praised and praised and praised him for doing the most basic of participating, and in the end he still said it was "too long" but the game went well and there was no daisy picking in the outfield.

We have five games remaining and I suspect it will still be a struggle to get him motivated for all of them but the season is blessedly short and I am optimistic. He's a little young yet for the stern "you signed up for this and you'll finish it!" speech (plus, I signed him up without really asking him!) I'm hoping that next year, after a year of Kindergarten under his belt, that things will be easier for him.

And one of the Bug chilling with his uncle Joel at the game, cause he's too cute to leave out.

What do you do to motivate your kids to do something they aren't thrilled to be doing? Something that SHOULD be fun for them? Does this change if your child is very young? The Pirate just turned 5 last month!  Do you stick it out or do you wait and try again next year?  Do you have a problem praising your child for something that every other kid is doing willingly in order to get them fired up?  (In general, I am not a huge fan of praise for the sake of praise, but it worked here.) Did you ever allow your kid to abandon something halfway?

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When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Remember on Mother's Day when I got to read two entire books? The first one I read was When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. After reading glowing reviews from several other bloggers, including Ms. Marjorie Ingall, who has never steered me wrong, I put it on hold from the library. And then I went to Hawaii and the book came in and went back out again without me being in town to pick it up. I finally put it back on hold a couple weeks ago and managed to get it read. So, with that backstory, was it worth it? Yes, it totally was. 

So, what's it about? This one is a middle grade fiction book (in my library this means it's shelved in the juvenile section, not YA) about Miranda, a 6th grader who lives with her mom in New York City. She's been lifelong best friends with Sal and her guide to life is a tattered copy of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Her mom is studying to be on the $20,000 Pyramid and is a bit distracted, so Miranda is a latchkey kid in the afternoons.   She starts to find cryptic little notes that hint at something that is going to happen, and there is a good bit of spooky foreshadowing to the story.  The entire book is told from Miranda's perspective looking back at everything that happened.

You should be forewarned that there is a bit of time travel in this one. It's not all scientific or science fiction-y, but more like the time travel in The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.  You don't have to remember A Wrinkle in Time well, and you don't have to suspend disbelief too much. It's really just a story about a girl who is learning to deal with changing friendships and the way one moment can change everything. Miranda's friendship with Sal is on the rocks, despite having been best friends for their entire lives. She's started to make friends with the girls in her class, and has to reassess how she feels about them.   She struggles a bit over a crush on a certain boy, and about kinda liking (in a friendly way!) a boy who she should dislike. Basically, it's about middle school! But it's adorable and smart and the action rolls and keeps you going and there really aren't any extra moments at all. I would have loved this one as a 6th grader, and I highly recommend it now.

Have you read this one? What did you think? Do you think the inclusion of time travel in an otherwise ordinary (ie, non-paranormal, non-sci-fi) book is a turn off or do you think that it adds just a little to the story? Does it change your opinion of the book either before or after reading it? Does it make you less likely to pick it up to start with? Is this something you would have enjoyed as a child? If you read it and reviewed it leave me a link and we'll compare notes.

When You Reach Me won the Newbery Medal in 2010 and while I haven't read the other nominees, I can certainly see how this one made it to the top. (For a full list of Newbery Award winners, click here.)

You can find Rebecca Stead online here.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Wendy Lamb Books
2009
208 pages


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Thoughtful parenting OR how to change your mind.

I am not a very thoughtful parent. I don't mean that I don't consider birthdays or special events or hurt feelings. I mean I don't always think my decisions through. I tend to go with instinct and hope for the best. This comes back to bite me in more ways than one, but it seems to be something I can't change about myself.

One example of something that is hard to change now  is tv. When the Pirate was born I believed that we would have limited tv, that we wouldn't even watch grownup tv in front of him often (not counting sports), and that he would fill his time with imaginative free play. Birds would chirp and owls would teach him how to fish and he'd be building full scale models of Camelot in his room with only some legos and bedsheets.

Um. No.

We watch tv. He watches tv. As does the Bug. And I know, "Studies show..." I don't care. He has a fine imagination anyway. He can recap all 6 Star Wars movies and compare how they differ from the Star Wars Lego for Wii game (just ask my mom, who got all the details on that during our Mother's Day phone call.) He knows crazy amounts of random stuff. He says things like, "Thanks Dad, I appreciate it." Just like the commercials on Nick Jr. promise, it's like preschool on tv!  I am not willing to give up every moment of my own time to make sure he (they) know who is shorter or taller. Does this make me a bad parent? No. Does this make me a sane parent? Yes.

But, here's the catch. Sometimes I want to watch tv. I mean, sometimes I think they should be doing something else. (While I watch tv.)  Routines are hard to break and it's become a habit of sorts. The battles have become epic as we've put more and more limits on the tv and the Wii.  I am impatient for summer, when we'll all want to be outside. Meanwhile, I spend a good part of each day saying no.  It's not that it's too much tv. It's that it's not enough ... everything else.  In retrospect, I should have seen this coming. I should have set limits early. I took the easy way and now it's the hard way.
What about you? Do you carefully think each parenting decision through to see what will work best in the end? Are you stuck battling something that you aren't really against, it's just that you're not really for it either? How do you handle it when you want to change your mind and your kids think not? Have the words, "Because I said so, and I'm the mommy!" crossed your lips?  Help me out, will ya?

(Please note, this post is not really about tv itself. It's about my inability to see how some things will play out in the end.)

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Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts

Savor the Moment (The Bride Quartet, Book 3) by Nora Roberts.

Last week I caved to temptation and picked up the lastest book in Nora Roberts's Bride Quartet. After really enjoying the first two in the series ( Vision in White (The Bride Quartet, Book 1) and Bed of Roses (The Bride Quartet, Book 2), I felt like this was a pretty safe bet on my limited book dollars. This one features Laurel, the cake maker, and Parker's brother Delaney. Laurel has, of course, loved Del her entire life but he sees her as a sister. After a completely random kiss in the kitchen, they both have to consider if they want to take the leap or not.

I think that if I had not read Bed of Roses that I'd have enjoyed this one more. As it was, it was a nice story, satisfying ending, fairly believable, but I felt we'd been there already. As with the other two, I thought Roberts did an excellent job with the professional aspect of the book (the cake making) and I really loved the interaction between the four women in the quartet.  It really sets up the remaining book (Happy Ever After (The Bride Quartet)) very nicely, and it seems that November is an awfully long ways away. I can't wait to see Mal give Parker a run for her money.

You can find Nora Roberts online at http://www.noraroberts.com/.

Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts
Berkley Trade
2010
352 pages


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Mother's Day

I'd love to be one of those people who are all eh about holidays, but I'm not. I love them all - birthdays, Valentine's, Christmas, Mother's Day. We had a terrific Mother's Day at my house yesterday, hopefully you did at yours?

We started with lunch out on Saturday, in order to beat the crowds. The Pirate was perfectly behaved and almost stayed in his seat the entire meal! The Bug had to be moved from a booster to a high chair with a seat belt due to an apparently overwhelming desire to climb out. We followed that up with a trip to The Children's Place to try to buy these adorable shoes, but our local store did not carry them. The Bug throught racing through the mall was fun, so we did not stay long. Buggy and I went home while Mike and the Pirate went grocery shopping, where the Pirate was similarly well behaved. They brought home a giant bouquet of flowers.

Sunday morning the boys (all three of them) were awake by 6am. This is not unusual, but I had hoped to sleep in a bit. Mike rounded them up about 6:30 and they went to Starbucks, in their pajamas!, to get mommy a nice fancy coffee for Mother's Day. Buggy carefully carried it back to me and was very excited to give it to me, "Mama! Coffee!"  Mike made breakfast (leftover shish kabobs- steak, zuchinni, onion, peppers, potatoes, and mushrooms cooked into eggs) and we lazed around. Mike smoked some ribs for lunch and we ate them with corn on the cob and pretended that summer was here.

In the afternoon I bailed on what I should be doing (sewing!) in favor of reading and actually read two entire books! In one day! Had to stay up until 11 to do so, but I can't remember the last time I did that. First I read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and then followed up with Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, Book 5) by Patricia Briggs. Both good with nice pacing that kept me from wanting to put the books down.  Full reviews to come, I hope, along with my reviews of  Cast Member Confidential: A Disneyfied Memoir by Chris Mitchell, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and Savor the Moment (The Bride Quartet, Book 3) by Nora Roberts. It's already been so long for poor Henrietta that I'm sure my review won't do it justice.

It was a terrific day and I couldn't bring myself to get online and blog about it, for fear it'd just feel like an ordinary day. I hope your Mother's Day was just as lovely.


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Drumroll...

On the opinion of two different techs, both of whom seemed certain, and myself, who has not been trained in the art of ultrasound technology....

 I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks.