First List of 2015 *Updated*

• I just re-read this book for my book club:

Our children have got to hate it any time I read this, because although I love it from beginning to end, immediately upon finishing they see a decided uptick in the number and difficulty of their chores (I say at least they're not scrubbing the head of a decapitated pig in preparation of the making of head cheese- and by the by, I double-dog dare you to do a google image search for "head cheese"; I suggest you keep a puke bucket within arm's reach) and anything I decided on a whim might be character-building.  Yesterday that took the form of walking home from the bus stop rather than going to get them in the van.  You'd have thought we lived miles away rather than 1.5 blocks.  I don't know what they were complaining about; it was four whole degrees above zero!  (I'm exaggerating, of course.  It was at least 6.)  No, the real test of their mettle will be tomorrow, when the high here is supposed to be -6° F.  I need to give them something to lecture their children about someday, don't I?  And "When I was a kid my mom drove us the 2 blocks to and from the bus stop" doesn't say anything but "I'M A GIANT PANSY."  You're welcome, children mine.

• The boys recently got hair cuts.  Atticus is evidently now old enough to request something other than the standard buzz Derek usually gives them.  His specific request was for "a haircut that makes it so I can have spikey hair."

Haircuts are not Atticus's favorite thing, although he does his best to sit still.  I try to tell him that Pain is Beauty, but this is apparently meaningless to a six-year-old boy.

When it was done Derek declared that his elder son looked like a soccer player, Adelaide said he looks like "one of the cool kids," and Atticus was pleased as punch.  

Caedmon, naturally, wanted whatever his older brother had, and while Derek tried, it turns out our Cade has a head that is almost the exact shape of a billiard ball, and that kind of cut isn't so flattering on perfectly round heads.  He got the buzz, I thwarted the impending emotional crisis by telling him he looked like a football player, and all was well.

• A joke I found perhaps too funny:  

Why couldn't Mozart find his teacher?

Because he was Haydn.

Oh, Laffy Taffy.  You get me.








UPDATE:  School is cancelled tomorrow due to "extreme cold."  It would appear that our school's administrators have yet to read Little Heathens.  Never fear, fellow anti-sissyfication-ists (why, yes, I did just make up a word); I have a host of snow day chores in my arsenal.  FUNNEST MOM EVER.

Quoth the Atticus

Most of the family's tears/drama/insecurity flow from our daughter, but the other day we got home from running errands, and Atticus disappeared up the stairs for a while.  I called him down for lunch and was met with silence, which was unusual.  I went to the bottom of the stairs, prepared to holler up at him again, when he called down to me, in a voice broken with despair,

"Mommy, my muscles are really small."

Adelaide immediately started laughing, as notoriously unsympathetic older sisters are wont to do, so I shushed her before hastily covering my face in my scarf to smother my own giggling.  He sounded so pathetic.  When he finally made his way down the stairs, I could see how much his small muscles were bothering him by the way he buried his face in my stomach while simultaneously thrusting his left arm up for inspection.  

Now, there's no question, the kid is right:  Atticus is stringy.  I didn't want to lie to him, so I said things about muscles getting bigger as you grow and how Daddy exercises and does push ups and stuff to get bigger muscles, and how his muscles were going to end up just fine.  Thinking back on it now, I should have mentioned things like brains and kindness and trustworthiness being more important than muscles, but I don't always think so well on my feet.  I'll randomly bring it up out of nowhere soon and completely bewilder him instead.


He will have a chance to work some of his muscles here in a couple months, because he finally got wise and told his daddy that he wanted to play soccer, evidently figuring out that Mother will delay entry into organized sports for as long as possible- say, forever?  Derek promptly informed him that he could start in the spring when soccer started back up, I panicked just the tiniest bit having heard about how vicious those soccer moms can be (never mind that I'm already friends with several of them and know that they will, in fact, be holding my hand and patiently explaining all the sportsing rules to The Slow One), but just smiled to Atticus and started hunting for those garage sale soccer cleats I just knew would come in handy one day.

Atticus has been asking me all sorts of soccer-related questions ever since, and because I don't know the answers, I just kind of make things up.  His questions and something he said to his grandma the other day have alerted me to the fact that a mother with almost total apathy to all things sports-related and a sports-expert father make for a skewed image of what his own youth athletic career will look like:

"Grandma, you can come watch me at my games OR you can just watch me on tv."

"Mom, will there be cheerleaders at my soccer games?  A lot of cheerleaders?"  (Oh, gracious.)

"How will I run onto the field?  Will I run with all the other kids on my team, or by myself?  Will everyone cheer when they say my name?"

"What kind of seats will you sit in when you're watching me?  Will they be those tall seats?"

He seems to think his rec center soccer team is somehow affiliated with MLS or the NFL and will, of course, come with all the associated hoopla.  I'm hoping that reality won't be too much of a letdown, although I'm starting to think Derek's right and I won't be able to read a book the whole time he's playing (at the practices, friends, not the games.  I'm not that terrible a mother.  Probably.); I'll need to be watching him and making up for a decided lack of television cameras/cheerleaders/fans holding up homemade signs.  

Unless those things really are at small town kiddie soccer games?  I really have no way of knowing.

I DO know you don't wear ninja masks in soccer... right?

When You're Stuck Inside

Now that the holidays are more or less over (we have two celebrations to go; one on Saturday and one on Sunday.  While we're looking forward to both, I can't help but think, Just gotta get to Monday, then I'll be freeeee!), it's time for the requisite post on the winter doldrums and cabin fever and snow-cold-blaaaaaargh.

This is the third time I've written this post but it keeps sounding so insufferably whiney I end up delete-delete-deleting in irritation at myself.  I'm trying to turn it from a self indulgent, winter-is-basically-house-arrest monologue to a Hey-we-do-fun-inside-stuff-this-time-of-year reminder.

So.  Fun inside stuff.

We've been playing a lot of games.  Jenga is a family favorite.  Well... it's a favorite of everyone but me.  My nerves can't handle Jenga.  I have to constantly fight the compulsion to lash out wildly at the structure just to end it all and rid my stomach of the horrible tension that exists during Jenga.  Even watching other people play I have to bury my face in my hands and whisper to whomever's unfortunate enough to be sitting next to me to just tell me when it's over.  

That kid up there, though?  I wasn't sure if four years old was old enough to play Jenga, but holy cow.  That kid is a Jenga Master.  His moves don't make any sense.  The tower should topple after most of his moves, but it never does.  I'm expecting his letter from Hogwarts the minute he turns 11, because that is the only explanation to his inexplicable talent.

We've also been playing a lot of Tri-ominos.  Adelaide and I have played the most, simply because she hasn't been in school so we actually have the long stretch of time it takes to complete a game, plus when I play with her I force her to be the score keeper, citing math; you get lots of practice adding and subtracting both positive and negative numbers.  

Derek and I played last night, but I'm not sure when he'll be willing to play with me again.  Something about what I call a victory laugh but he referred to as a cackle.

Derek busted out his trap set for a couple days, and everyone got to take a spin on that.

Click to embiggen and see Cade's tongue sticking out the same way Derek's often does when he's drumming.

I was out for a run when he set it up, but could hear it when I was still almost a block away from the house.  It's... well, it's loud.  I don't know how Derek's parents don't have permanent hearing loss from years of his teenage drumming.  

There's the tongue again.

We did make everyone wear ear plugs.  No need to give them a legitimate reason not to listen to me.

Derek got some practice time in, too, which was tons more fun to listen to, because he doesn't suck.  Not that our children suck.  (Yes, they do.)  I'm sure if any of them choose the drums as their instrument (heaven help me), they'll improve.  

Baking is another great indoor activity, and will help you meet those winter weight gain goals.

Adelaide and I made that apple pie up there on Christmas Eve.  I have to say, if you have an eight-year-old sous chef, everything is so much easier.  She can assemble all your ingredients, mix up the filling while you make and roll out the crust, then falsely lead everyone to believe you're some kind of Martha Stewart by shaping extra dough into whimsical shapes for the top.  If you can get your six-year-old to misbehave on December 23rd, so much the better; he can spend the following day doing heaps of extra chores and your house will be unnaturally clean for your holiday.  

Throw in some books, Legos, and jigsaw puzzles, and you have our winter.  Crislers Gone Wild.  

"All I Want For Christmas Are Weapons of Mass Destruction"

The title of this post may not be precisely what our boys requested, but it is, in essence, what they wanted.

It is also what they received.  Come, Lord Jesus.  Soon.  Please.

Caedmon got a Batman sword.  

And Batman nunchuks.  And a Batman dagger, which you can just see tucked into his belt there, which was actually one of mine, and is made of soft tan velveteen.  Just like Batman would wear.

Atticus got ninja stuff.

Caedmon also got a little toy rifle, which he likes to use when wearing the paper cape his sister made him for Christmas.  She even curled the end to aid in its fluttering in his wake when he runs.

Our resident superhero also got some awesome screen-printed muscles in the form of Batman footie pajamas, with detachable cape, of course.  Just in time, too; his old, holey, too-small, loved-to-rags Batman pajamas were starting to make him look like homeless PTSD-riddled Batman.  He has now been restored to his former glory, which must mean he's currently in the third movie of whatever Batman trilogy he mentally stars in.

Click to embiggen, for the sake of your eyeballs.

Our children didn't just get materials to stock our household armory; Adelaide got a much longed-for giant artist's kit, Atticus got sports stuff, and Caedmon got tools and a tool belt, and we all got the baby Jesus, plus a few miscellaneous things like much-needed warm, layering clothing and games and a harmonica.  Between several sets of grandparents and great-parents and a few loving aunts and uncles (and Jesus), they're set for the year.  Derek and I only ever get each of them one gift from us, and one gift from Santa.  The gift from us is something they need (this year it was thick, waterproof mittens, which I know work splendidly because after wearing them indoors for several minutes Caedmon announced that "They're too hot; they make my hands slimy!").

Atticus intent upon attaching the net to his basketball hoop.

Caedmon intent upon doing something with this tools.  I don't know what.  

Now that we've got all this new kid stuff in our house, I get to go through and choose what we're getting rid of, which is one of the beauties of living in a house with limited storage space:  Something comes in, something else must go out.  I've got five grocery sacks full of toys so far.  The children have come close to tears; I am gleeful.  CHRISTMAS IS OVER, KIDDIES MUAHAHAHA.



On Christmas Day:

 During Mommy's Post-Christmas Purge:

Best Books of 2014

Now, when I say "Best Books of 2014," I do not mean the best books published in 2014, I mean the best books I read in 2014.  This isn't the New York Times, people; my sense of self-importance isn't constantly threatening to explode all over you and this post isn't going to be twenty years long.  (I actually love the New York Times.  But the previous statement is still completely true.)

The problem is, even though the majority of what I read wasn't brand spanking new, some of it was still pretty great, great enough to want to not-so-subtly pressure/ recommend you read it, however, what started as a quick, "Here's my favorite five or so books I read this year" listy kind of post quickly mutated into something twenty years long.

For around eight seconds I lost my head completely and thought about cutting books from the list (the horror), but then inspiration struck, and rather than one huge list, I decided to divide the books into smaller, sometimes genre- specific, sometimes completely arbitrary lists of my own design, because that's... well, certainly not shorter, but perhaps a bit more organized, and seeing as tomorrow's the beginning of a New Year I understand mobs of people are going to be obsessed with organization for two whole weeks, right?

Anyway.  Onward!

Fiction by Brits  

To be read with tea, or with coffee and you can just pretend it's tea, because tea is nasty.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Read this one if you want to pull for an older man and his wife and walking and the strangers he meets and England.  I've always loved the idea of a pilgrimage, but then, I love to walk.  Everything happens so fast when you're driving; whereas walking provides time for introspection and it forces you to be in that great healer The Outdoors, plus you feel great when you reach your destination.  Don't believe me?  Ask Harold Fry.







Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

If you like mystery series or female protagonists who have a working brain or the 1920's- 1930's or, again, England, these are the books for you.  This is one of those where Ms. Winspear makes me love her characters so much that I get exceedingly nervous for them, having to pause and put the book down to take a deep breath when they get themselves into pickles or when there's only ten pages left but they do something stupid; can't they see the book's almost over and they're in danger of being killed off?!  Plus there are close to a dozen books in the series, so if you do love it, you have ready-made reading material far into 2015.

Fiction by Other Foreigners

Is there any way to say "foreigners" without sounding completely hateful?  Because I really don't mean it that way.  I mean, who knew Australians were so funny?  And now I'll stop before Derek has a heart attack, even if my prejudices are xenophilic in nature.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

I started this book and stayed up way too late reading into one night and neglected certain halfway necessary tasks the next day just to finish it.  Then I went into my library and wheedled and pleaded until the librarian had requested every other book by Moriarty she could find.  Big Little Lies remains my favorite of this author's books so far, although they're all entertaining; her characters are absolutely endearing, the pace of the books is quick, quick, quick, and the observations on human behavior are en pointe and absolutely hilarious.  

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

I talked about this and a few other books in this post, and I'm guessing by now you've heard about this book everywhere.  It's charming.  The characters are lovable.  You won't be able to put it down.  Everyone loves it.  Your library likely has several copies; just go get one already.

Fantasy

To be read while eating cookies, because calories don't exist in Faerie.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Ms. Valente is ridiculously creative in her world building and twisty, turny plots, not to mention her incredible skill with fickle, fickle words.  Perfect escapist fantasy, Adelaide and I both adore this book and the two others in the series; Adelaide recently mentioned that if she could pick one book to go on and on forever, it would be this one, because our daughter has excellent taste.

A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle

I read and loved A Wrinkle in Time as a child, and while it remains one of my all time favorites, I had yet to read the Time Quartet before this year.  I'm not really sure why I waited so long, except for the always valid excuse that there's never enough time to read All The Books.  I loved this book: the continuation of a beloved story, its inherent message, and the fact that I can't stop thinking about the way she chose to depict an angel.  Forget halos and gentle smiles and curiously Scandinavian hair and skin; this angel was memorable and somehow feelingly real.  

Historical Fiction

Even those of us who actually liked reading our history textbooks have something to learn from these, and bonus!  There will not be a test when you're done, but feel free to come by my house; we'll bury the kids in Legos and argue about the protagonists' motives over coffee.    

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This is brilliant WWII fiction; if you've already read a bunch of WWII fiction (who hasn't?), and you therefore don't need to read this one, I say fair enough, as long as you already know about the use and importance of radios used in the war, you're aware of the part locksmiths played in European museums, and you've never wondered how certain parts of the population- such as the blind-  survived living in Occupied parts of Europe.  A must-read.

Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall

This is The Help if the The Help had been told from the point of view of a plucky nine-year-old who's a magnet for trouble but still entirely likeable.  She and her comrades-at-arms will have you cheering and crying and hoping that they'll somehow find their way out of the inherent scrapes that come from being an African American, or even being seen with someone with darker skin, in the South in the 1960's.  Recent events here in the real world may leave you the tiniest bit depressed while reading this book, though, thinking that perhaps we haven't come so far after all.

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

You are only allowed to skip this book if you can give me a full dissertation on the yellow fever epidemic of 1793.  If not, read this and send me a heart-felt thank you note later.  I did a more complete review in this post, and my feelings have not changed:  this one's a keeper; one of the few books I've actually bought with real live money just so it could occupy a precious space on our bookshelves.

The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander

At the beginning of this book you'll be smiling and whispering, "Oooh, this is a good one," halfway through you'll start to worry for the characters and whisper, "Well, I apparently know NOTHING about Russian history," at the end you'll flip through the final pages in bewilderment, whispering, "It's over?  That's it?  After that plot twist?"

Actually, I hope you don't do any of that.  All of that whispering is creepy.

Memoir

Because people are interesting.

A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

Read this one after you've slogged through half of The Goldfinch before remembering no one's actually forcing you to read such a lugubrious tome of a book.  Kimmel is just as smart as Tartt but about a million times more relatable.  From Kimmel's father convincing her they really did adopt her from a band of traveling gypsies to her wry observation that her older brother was a very attractive, angry young man and that girls went nuts over him, you'll wonder why she ever had to stop telling the world at large about her family and innocuous Indiana hometown.  I love this one.

Books You Want to Shove In Other People's Faces

But don't.  People don't like that, I've been told.  

Quiet : The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

This one should by on your Life's Syllabus, if only because it will describe the maddening, befuddling actions of a large part of the population.  I'm a strong introvert, and I was astonished over and over again to have so many of my behaviors identified and explained, but also validated, with helpful coping mechanisms suggested throughout.  My mom thinks it should be required reading for teachers; I would only expand that to anyone who works with other human beings.









Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Yes, I'm still harping about this book.  Yes, it's about a university professor who develops alzheimer's disease. No, there are no frolicsome wyverns or romps through beautiful lands; they can't all be The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland.  But as I no doubt said before, this book feels important, like you're learning to empathize with anyone who's ever been forced to wander down the terrifying path of Dementia, and it's written in a way that you're not forcing yourself to pick it up and keep reading; you're eager to do so.








One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

This is a book to be slowly and thoughtfully ingested, one precious revelation at a time, until you reach the end, and then you flip back to the front and start over.  You'll wallow in little things like grace and compassion and thankfulness, and who doesn't need that?

For Derek's Birthday I Didn't Buy a Useless Antique

Yesterday was Derek's birthday.  The Vikings were gracious enough to grant him a birthday win, I made him a giant birthday cookie, and my mom and Mark, since they were in town, offered to watch the kids while the birthday boy and I went on a date.

We enjoyed a nice dinner out and Derek tortured himself at a golf store, but in between those two we went to the Brass Armadillo, antique mall extraordinaire.  (If you click on that link back there, brace yourselves:  There are painful spelling and grammatical errors galore on their website.  Hear me now, friends:  "Isles" DOES NOT equal "Aisles."  When they write "Stroll through isles of..." I, naturally, picture hopping from island to island of antiques and quirky vintage treasures, not, as I can only assume they mean, walking through aisles of the same.)

The thing is, I love the Brass Armadillo.  It's where I adopted Hermione.  I almost always find super creepy dolls and marionettes to snap pictures of and send to my traumatized sisters.  I found a beautifully illustrated old hardcover copy of one of my favorite books there for two dollars.  (Just like this one, actually.)  When I visit that place, I like to take my time, examining any items that catch my eye (read:  half the things there, taking upwards of two hours.  I recognize that this is crazy.).

But when Derek and I went yesterday, he had a stern talk with me before entering, reminding me that we were on a mission, that we were looking for a specific item, that I needed to focus.  I did spectacularly well the first three steps in the door, until I saw a Christmas tree full of truly tacky old ornaments.  I faltered for a few seconds before muttering "Get behind me, Satan!"  (I couldn't tell if the lady manning the welcome station by the front door heard me or not; interpreting her facial expression was rather difficult due to the bold decision to paint her eyebrows on her forehead.)

Thereafter I was a model shopper, whipping up and down aisles in search of a coat tree, pausing only once in a moment of weakness caused by an antique bed warmer.  This is precisely the kind of thing that calls out to me at antique stores, begging to be taken to its forever home.  I knew Derek would ask ridiculous questions like, "What exactly are you going to do with it?  Where are you going to put it?"  Because "Smile at it," pretty much never satisfies him, I tried to frame some kind of persuasive response.  I mentally appealed to his logical side:  "Use it for its original purpose!"  Unfortunately we don't have a ready supply of coal and I had a sneaking suspicion that Derek would veto potentially burning our children alive, anyway.

Still in search of a loving home.

So it was with great sadness that I moved past the bed warmer, sending out psychological messages of "It's not you but it's also not me, it's my husband," which is probably a common refrain in there; rational spouses ruin all the fun but also save lives.

Thankfully I had this fun little trinket to console me when I got home:

My mom ferried this up to me from my grandma.  If you don't have a grandma who buys you random old stuff at auctions, I feel sorry for you.

It's a small tin grease pot that's a little dusty on the outside but immaculate inside.  It makes me wonder if it was ever used, given its purpose.

Actually, what is its purpose?

There's a removable strainer that sits just under the lid, then another at the inner entrance to the spout.  I'm assuming you pour the grease from your bacon or beef or whatever into the top, through the first sieve, then it gets strained a second time when you go to pour that same grease... where?  All over your food?  (retch)  I don't really understand the need to strain and then pour grease onto anything.  I pour our excess grease straight from the pan into an empty can and keep it in the freezer until it's full and ready to toss.  

Still, I like the look of it, and every time I walk by it I find myself singing "Grease is the word, have you heard, it's the word..."  Plus I just found the exact same thing on an ebay auction; it sold for $26 + $10 shipping, and I can promise you my grandma didn't pay that much.

I've also been throwing lots of smiles in its direction, although I've yet to find a good place for it.  I've had it in the kitchen windowsill, but that's a dangerous location as it's right in Derek's line of sight.  It'll probably end up where everything else does: on one of the piles of books scattered throughout the house.  Hey, it's smaller than a bed warmer, right?

A Special Kind of Smart

Last weekend Derek and I got to go play laser tag with some friends.  It was the one thing Derek really wanted to do for his birthday, so his mom kindly came over to watch the kids, and though I've never played laser tag before and really wasn't expecting to enjoy the whole activity, it was for my husband's birthday, so I decided to close my eyes and think of England, as it were, and at the very least pretend I was having a good time while running around shooting fake guns at people.

Well.  It was actually incredibly fun, darting around a big warehouse and peering around pieces of drywall, trying to take out the somewhat obnoxious strangers on the opposing team.

The part that I keep thinking about, however, is at the end, when we were removing the velcro straps from around our foreheads, and the employee said, "Everybody hand me the non-fabric part of the strap, please, there at the end."

I proceeded to do my darndest to take that little piece of the strap off the rest so I could hand it to him, but my gosh, how was I supposed to do that when it appeared to be sewn together?

I wrestled with it for several seconds before looking around to see how everyone else was faring, but it turns out every single other person there had understood his instructions and were holding their headbands by the tips, on the non-fabric end.

Ah.  I see.


I have wondered in the past how it is that so often everyone else understands these things but me, but then I think of my mother and my daughter.

Now listen to me.  My mother is a very intelligent woman.  Our daughter is a very intelligent girl.

My mother is also the person who, when we were out for a walk through a nature preserve while she was visiting us in Connecticut, exclaimed, "I just saw a really old squirrel!"

When I asked how she knew it was really old (never having known before that she was any kind of squirrel expert), she explained that it had gray hair.

Oh, how I laughed.  But also understood.  We only have brown squirrels in Kansas, as opposed to the gray squirrels that inhabit CT.


Then I think about the time I was sitting in a bedroom in our house in Kansas, holding a baby Atticus, and asked two-year-old Adelaide to turn on the light.  She tried but couldn't reach, so I told her to go get the step stool.  A couple minutes later I turned my head at the sound of something scraping against the wall;  our daughter had the step stool stretched over her head, attempting to catch the light switch with it to turn it on, rather than, you know, standing on it.


Or how about when I was a teenager, my mom and I walking out to the parking lot to get in my car, the Little Tercel that Could, and it wouldn't start, which wasn't like it at all.  No air conditioning, no radio or in-dash clock or power steering, but that thing always, always started.  We got out, opened up the hood (which, looking back, is completely laughable- I'm astonished we even knew how to open the hood), then gasped in unison.  There was a gaping hole right in the middle of all the other unidentifiable stuff (that is to say, everything)- someone had stolen part of our engine!  

I'm guessing it was my mom who thought to thumb through the owner's manual to see just which crucial part had been taken, when we found it- that big blank space was where the air conditioner went in cars that weren't completely stripped down.  You know, the one my car never had?  We fell all over each other laughing, and then I don't remember what happened next.  I'm assuming we got out of that parking lot somehow, as I am not presently there.


I must say, if you don't mind looking foolish from time to time, it isn't a bad way to live.  At least we laugh a lot.  At ourselves.  Along with everyone else.