Well, someone's got to break the silence around here, it might as well be me!
I've been very busy procrastinating the 10 or so book/movie/music CD reviews I'm supposed to write. What better way to take that procrastination to new heights than to give away a book I bought myself?
Like many people, I first heard of Jacquelyn Mitchard when she appeared on Oprah, who chose her novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, as the very first selection for Oprah's Book Club. I have not read that book yet, mostly because I've been gestating or lactating for most of the time since it came out, and I still can't read stories about people's kids dying.
When I received my charter issue of Wondertime in the mail last year, I noticed Mitchard on the masthead right away. That's how I realized she has seven children, and still manages to have an amazing writing career. Since then, I've enjoyed her writing in that magazine every month.
Perusing Bookcloseouts.com one day, I found this little paperback collection of Mitchard's newspaper column, The Rest of Us, which she has written for many years for various newspapers. I found it to be a fascinating read and I'm not exaggerating when I say she's my new hero, as far as the writer/mom thing goes. I don't want to give her story away, but she was a widow with four children and, despite discouragement from friends and family, she took some brave steps and made her dreams come true.
Anyway, if you're out on the 'net reading mom blogs such as this, I know you would thoroughly enjoy The Rest of Us. If you'd like to win my humble, used paperback copy of this book, please leave me a comment with your favorite comedy -- either a movie, a TV show, an author or specific book ... whatever, so long as it makes you laugh. Because then maybe it will make me laugh, too. And I heard somewhere that laughing helps you lose weight.
I'll accept entries until Sunday at midnight, EST, and I'll announce the winner on Monday. Good luck!
When I agreed to join the MotherTalk blog tour for The Big Payoff, by Sharon Epperson, I did so with an optimistic heart. The subtitle, "8 Steps Couples Can Take to Make the Most of Their Money -- and Live Richly Ever After," tapped right into my fantasy of, well, living richly ever after.
So far it's been just that, a fantasy. Procrastination tends to be my MO when it comes to financial planning. It's all so ... boring. And yet it's vital to my family's security and well-being.
I have tried letting my husband handle everything. However, he can't. We support a family of five on one income. We own a home and may soon sell it and buy another one. We're saving for retirement, college and emergencies. We purchase healthcare insurance, plus homeowner's insurance, life insurance and short- and long-term disability insurance. We still need to create a will. In other words, managing our financial world is complicated and time-consuming. Brian can handle most of the paperwork and research, but ultimately, I also need to be involved in making financial decisions.
Fortunately, Epperson's book has turned out to be a practical guide that has helped bring me up to speed. It's well-organized into eight chapters, or steps, covering budgeting, emergency savings, retirement planning, home ownership, college savings, health and disability coverage, and estate planning. When I first sat down to read it, I could feel myself resisting. I just hate reading about this stuff. However, Epperson's writing style was lively enough to keep me from nodding off (as her husband did during a meeting with their financial planner -- ha ha!).
One wall Brian and I keep hitting is creating and sticking to a budget. I always get bogged down in counting up receipts and, before long, I stop tracking things completely. The simple worksheets, Web sites and tips featured in The Big Payoff have given me renewed hope, however. One option Epperson describes is the 60 percent solution, which I plan to explore with Brian. Basically, you keep committed expenses to 60 percent or less, with the rest going to savings: 10 percent for retirement, 10 percent for long-term savings, 10 percent for irregular expenses and 10 percent for fun money. Another tip is to use your debit card for as many purchases as possible. That way you get the ease of tracking spending that a credit card affords, without the temptation to carry a balance and incur hefty interest charges.
I also appreciated the chapter on home ownership, "Feathering Your Nest." Epperson covers the topic so well, providing everything from the different types of mortgages to how to get the most for the home you're selling. I'm pretty excited because the next time I'm at a party I can speak intelligently about hybrid adjustable rate mortgages.
Did I mention I like how the book is organized? I did? Well, here's an example. The college savings chapter provides descriptions of the different kinds of accounts couples can use, spelling out all the pros and cons of each. As I looked them over, my eyes glazed over and my inner finance hater started singing "la la la la." But at the end of the chapter, Epperson gives succint advice based on yearly income. All the options boggled my mind a bit, but then the book came through with the guidance I needed.
Another thing I like about this book is that it gives lots of Web resources throughout the book. (The only one missing seems to be Want Not -- maybe in the next edition!) Here are just a few sites that piqued my interest:
At 200 pages, The Big Payoff is not a 12-pound tome, and the print isn't even microscopic. Yet, it's suprisingly comprehensive, with a nice balance of detailed information and top-level guidance. It gave me, someone with zero interest in the topic, a good understanding of the what I need to do to get my financial house in order. Growing up, my family lived paycheck to paycheck, and financial security has always been a hot-button issue for me. It still is. After reading the book, though, I do feel more confident about achieving financial peace of mind. And that, says Epperson, is the big payoff.
Yesterday, in the kitchen and trying to motivate, I turned on the radio. Ava appeared within seconds, doing the classic "head banging" move. I, of course, abandoned my cleaning effort and grabbed my camera. Although I didn't capture the head banging, and within seconds she wanted to "try" my camera, one thing's for sure: my girl likes music. I can see her now, at a concert with her friends, dancing the night away. I just hope she has her shirt on.
Did I ever tell you about the times I almost got murdered?
I wrote this post about "danger" to join in the fun over at MotherTalk's Dangerous Boy Friday.
When I was little, danger lurked just outside my door. I grew up in a second-floor apartment two houses down from a nursing home. My mother worked there as a nurse’s aide, and I’d gone to work with her a few times. Some of the old people scared me. One night, when I was 3 or 4 years old, sirens blared from its parking lot, and word came that an elderly woman had jumped from her second story window. Mangled dead old person, just a few doors down! It only took about four years before I could sleep with my bedroom window open again.
There was also a half-way house located beside my back yard. When I was about 8, my friends blindfolded me, took me to an undisclosed location and abandoned me, to see if I could find my way home. This was our idea of a good time. I took the blindfold off and found myself in the woods near the halfway house. As I started walking, I came upon an overweight white guy in his twenties, sporting a big fuzzy afro and a flannel shirt. He was mindlessly walking through the woods and didn’t even look in my direction. For years afterward, however, my heart palipitated as I remembered "the time I almost got murdered in the woods by a 'prisoner.'”
At some point, danger became something to seek out. The kids in my neighborhood agreed. We held séances and did the Ouija board. We played “Martian gardens,” complete with paper Mache alien heads. I liked to ride my bike, alone, behind the grammar school located on my street, even though my mother told me not to. That is, until I saw the news at 11 one night, and heard about the girl that got murdered behind a school. Then I stopped, and remembered those solitary bike rides as “the times I almost got murdered behind my school.”
I also almost got murdered by two high school boys. My friend and I decided it was OK to leave a party with them, in their car, and go to their house. Even though we didn’t know them and had told no one where we were going. At the time it seemed thrilling and exciting. But by the next morning, we were pretty ashamed and frightened that we’d done something so stupid.
The other stupid thing we did together was to get in the car with a teenaged boy knowing that he drove like a crazy idiot. On a particularly dark summer night, driving down Interstate 95 with us in the back seat, this kid decided to come to a full stop, turn off the all the lights, put the car in reverse. He then drove backwards as fast as he could. I think he achieved about 35 mph, but I’m not sure because every cell of my body froze in sheer terror. To this day, when I think of that night, my stomach does flip flops.
Now I’m old and have kids and, once again, danger lurks just outside my door. Instead of flirting with danger for fun, I imagine the dangers threatening my children and fantasize about banishing them all. I can do things to protect them now, but the older they get, the less control I’ll have. Soon they too will seek out danger for kicks. They’ll attend keg parties. Shady characters of all sorts will have access to them, out in the real world.
And I thought the mangled dead old person was scary.
When I received my copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys, for the unprecedented 20-blog MotherTalk tour, I had to hold it in my hands and admire it. It's a sturdy hardcover and, while it's not glossy with full-color photos on every page, it's got plenty of pictures, diagrams and information -- 270 pages of it, divided up into digestable two- to six-page chapters.
As I flipped through the pages, even before reading beyond the chapter titles, I felt transported. Was there really a time when boys spent their days holed up in treehouses or playing stickball in the street until the street lights came on? When kids amused themselves playing pen-and-paper games, skipping stones on a pond, shooting marbles and teaching their dogs tricks? It feels to me like a fairy tale, in this day of Game Boys, instant messaging and structured after-school activities.
I also felt glad that the author included "Seven Poems Every Boy Should Know," "Books Every Boy Should Read," and "Girls," which offers practical, succinct advice on a touchy subject, including "listen" and "avoid being vulgar." And I wanted to delve right into the chapters on simple games like chess, marbles and stick ball, and those that teach lost-art skills like making a pinhole projector, a bow and arrow, a battery, and even a paper hat, boat and water bomb.
My husband didn't even notice the chapters about poems and stories, and the games and stuff to make? Well, he claims he already knows all that. He's kind of a know-it-all anyway (but a lovable one). Brian does think this is a cool book of general knowledge. However, he points out that it's pretty deep -- precise, not trivial -- and one will have to be a strong, interested reader to enjoy it. He liked "Making a Go-Cart" but wondered why the authors bothered with "The Solar System." He felt that, in some ways, the book tries to be too much.
When I asked Brian what makes the book for boys, since I'm interested in much of what it covers, he pointed out the chapters on war and sports. "But girls like sports," I countered.
"'How to Play Poker,'" he replied. "'A Brief History of Artillery', 'Insects and Spiders', 'Making a Bow and Arrow,' 'Hunting and Cooking a Rabbit' ... "
"OK, OK, you win." I had to concede that it's a book targeted to boys' interests. Although I do plan to read it so I can impress my husband with my knowledge of Waterloo and Ben and John with my knowledge of, um, everything. It will likely be a few years before my five- and six-year-old boys can read this book, so there's time for me to act like I "just knew how" to make a periscope and a simple elecromagnet.
As far as being dangerous goes, I do think the book is dangerous in the sense that knowledge is power. I've always liked to read, but not until my adult years did I fully understand how books could help me through life. The fact is, there's not too much that we can't overcome with knowledge. When we learn that -- when we learn -- we become powerful and, well, look out world!
Two things are for sure. One, I'm buying my 14-year-old nephew a copy for his birthday, since there's no way I'm giving up my review copy. (Want to win a copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys? Enter HarperCollins' contest .) Two, there simply must be a follow-up to this book. Who's up to the task of writing The Dangerous Book for Girls? And what kinds of knowledge do you think it should include?
My five year old, John, has had it in for me lately, telling me that he hates me whenever things don't go his way.
"I hate you, Mom."
"I don't love you, I hate you."
"I can't wait to go to school because you won't be there."
Geesh.
We're still butting heads about the bathroom talk. "Fart" is his new favorite word. When Brian, my mom or I ask him a question, half the time we get a fresh answer. He's relentless. He literally spews naughty words all day, and I have no idea why. A phase, I'm sure. It's not like I let him get away with it. The other night I even swatted his butt for saying he hated me for the 10th time that day. Not a great moment in my mothering history. But wow, was I sick of hearing it.
In contrast to his professed hatred for me, John is helplessly in love with his sister, Ava. "Do you know who I love the most?" he has asked everyone who will listen, again and again, for the past several months. "Ava."
"Do you know who I like the best? Ava."
"I love Ava a wicked lot."
"Mom, guess who I like the ..."
"Ava?"
"Yep."
He's often affectionate with me, too. I don't get a lot of "I love you's" from him, but he comes and sits on my lap, resting his head on my shoulder. At bedtime, he stands on his bed so I can pick him up and give him some smooches. Recently he began demanding that I kiss him 100 times, but that got to be a bit much, so we're back to just several kisses on each cheek, plus a high five.
This week, though, when I approached his bed, I'd get the old "talk to the hand" response. He'd barely let me kiss his cheek.
Last night, I read stories to the boys and tucked them in, got "the hand" from John and went downstairs. I was in front of the bathroom mirror when John appeared in the doorway, chin buckled, tears rimming his eyes.
"You didn't kiss me, Mom."
"Oh, I'm glad you came and got me," I said, and walked him back upstairs. He's 50 pounds now, so I have to hold him in front of me with my fingers weaved together beneath him like a seat. Standing by his bed in the dark, feeling his weight against my chest, I kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear, "I love you more than anything."
Tonight, I again got full hug-and-kiss privileges. This time, as I held him, he said, "Mom, I love you the most." I froze, waiting for him to retract, to remind me that he loves his sister the most, then his dad, then, um, 10 other people, and then me. "I mean, I love you the opposite of the most, which means the least." That's something he would say. I am not kidding.
Instead, he continued: "I love Ava a wicked lot, and I love you a wicked lot. I love Ava the most, and I love you just as much."
"Thank you, Johnny, that makes me feel so good," I said as I pulled his blankets over him. He didn't even say "fart" as I walked out of the room.
I know he's loved me all along, underneath the tough talk. Hearing it from him tonight, though, the way he said it? Best Mother's Day gift, ever. I feel like I can love him through 1,000 more "I hate you's," if I have to.
Hopefully, he didn't plan it that way.
UPDATED TO ADD: When I came downstairs this morning, John greeted me with a huge hug. Then as I helped him with something he said, "I love you, Mom. You're the best. I can always I count on you." I've either entered an alternate universe or he's working me for a trip to the toy store. If it's the latter, he's on the right track.
I weaned my baby this week. Actually, she’s not a baby anymore. She talks and runs and even jumps, getting both feet off the ground at once. She chats to me all morning about Ben and John going bye-bye and the school bus she wants ride on. She carries her doll around, hugging it and saying “Love.” She turns her palms up and shrugs as she says, "I dunno." She started calling my milk “appa joosh” (apple juice). I guess she figured flattery might win her a few more months. It did.
Weaning was easier with my first two babies. I got pregnant when Ben was 10 months old, and by the time he turned 1, my milk had changed so that he no longer wanted it. He humored me for a few more months, nursing at bedtime. When he finally turned me down flat, I sobbed for an entire evening, telling Brian that I now had “nothing.” Hormones, much?
John, at 21 months, had nursed only at naptime for several months. One afternoon, I sat on the bed, lifted my shirt, pulled him close, and he said, “No.”
I said, “OK,” plopped him in his crib, and that was that.
Ava, though, wasn’t going to let go so easily, and with no impending pregnancy to help things along, I knew I’d have to help her transition. For the last six months or so, she nursed just a naptime and bedtime. She’d let my mom put her down for a nap without asking for me to come nurse her, and if I was out for the night, Brian could put her to bed without a problem. I thought maybe I could just casually stop. A few times, I made my way over to the rocker instead of the edge of my bed, the one and only place I nursed her. I’d start rocking and singing, and Ava would point frantically to the bed -- “There! There!” – until I gave in.
One time I took it a step further, and said, “It’s all gone.” She screamed and cried, and it wasn’t a well-thought-out attempt in the first place. I just gave in, but I told her, “It’s almost empty, honey.”
“No,” she said, staring into my face, her eyes wide. “Appa joosh.”
In the back of my mind, I figured I’d stop by her second birthday. But lately she started nursing for less and less time. She’d drink for three or four minutes then say, “All gone,” even on the good side. Nursing no longer made naptime easier, in fact, my mom could put Ava down faster than I could, because she never fell asleep nursing. It just made the whole process take longer. Plus, I didn't want to drag out the pain any longer by continuing to say "Almost gone." There was no denying it. My girl was 22 months old, and it was time.
Thursday at naptime I told her it was “all gone,” for real, and she cried and cried. She fell asleep and woke a short time later, crying again. She started saying, “guk” for “milk,” getting serious now, not wanting to cause any confusion by asking for “appa joosh.”
“All gone, honey,” I told her. And now, after less than a week, she’s fine. I’ve averted clogged ducts or mastitis, as far as I can tell, after an emergency crash-course in manual expressing Saturday morning. I haven’t even cried once about it, which surprises me a little considering I’ll never nurse another baby. Besides a severe case of lopsided breast syndrome, I'm OK.
I'm just replaying it in my head, how her legs got so long that I had to move the pillows on the bed to make a spot for them. The way she’d point at my breast and say, “There it is!” then kiss the air a few times. The way her eyes would kind of roll and then close as she latched on. What it felt like to hold her in my arm, my other hand resting against the small of her back, holding her in position. Her face nuzzled against me, her arm slung up over her head, fingers twirling her hair. The way she'd come off the breast just to say "More," bringing her fingers together to make the sign, emphasizing her point. Then, that last time, the way she popped off and said, “All gone,” not knowing that it really was.
I first realized the depth of my affection the moment I saw the email's subject line: "LeapFrog loves your site!" I'm not proud about it, but I squealed. It was just a little squeal, but still.
A LeapFrog representative wanted to know if I would review a few of their new toys. After jumping up and down a few times and yelling "woo-hoo," I told her that, certainly, I would be willing to do that. I guess it's kind of pathetic that I got so excited about a toy company. Thank God people don't send luxury items for me to review. I might, like, blow a tube.
The rep was kind enough to let me choose which toys to review. I chose the LeapStart Learning Table for Ava, and a Leapster L-Max for the boys. Mostly because we already own every other LeapFrog toy in existence. Seriously.
Learn & Groove Musical Table: We own two other activity tables, so I never considered buying LeapFrog's version. What I didn't know about this table is that it's more of a musical toy than a typical baby/toddler play table. Ava became immediately enthralled with this toy. When either of her brothers came within 3 feet of it, she would screech until he backed away for fear of his ear drum exploding. This marked the first time she ever showed an inability to share. So, thanks, LeapFrog, for setting that developmental stage off so nicely. Also, just yesterday she picked the entire table up off the floor in a successful effort to get it away from John, giving her some muscle toning as well. I think what they call that is "multi-fine-gross-motor-musical-sensory-development." Or something.
In the center of the table, there's a book with one page. Turning the page switches all the buttons and doohickeys from singing and chatting about colors, numbers and the alphabet to playing music, with piano, banjo, trombone, drums, bongo and other traditional music box sounds. There's even a box that contains a tiny, invisible and talented jazz singer. It's truly amazing.
In fact, the first few times Ava played with it while I was in another room, I thought a jazz singer had popped over for afternoon warm ups, or that Reading Rainbow was featuring Charlie Parker Played Be Bop. What I'm saying, not so eloquently, is that much of the music has a jazz bent and it all sounds great. If you have other LeapFrog toys, you may think you know what I mean. But this sounds even smoother than, say, the Fridge Phonics and the Phonics Radio, which both sound pretty good in their own right. If you want to buy a baby a musical, educational toy that won't cause her parents to hate you, this one's hard to beat.
Leapster L-Max: What can I say about the Leapster that you don't already know? Does every person on the planet under age 10 own one already? Well, I held off getting Leapsters for my boys because I didn't yet own an MP3 player myself, and it would have just been wrong for them to have more take-a-long technology than I did. However, Brian bought me an MP3 player and then of course Leapster sent me one free of charge, so I sprung for a second one at 20 percent off and now the boys can Leap with the best of them. The thing that sold me on the Leapster is that the games are educational and the graphics are pretty spectacular, especially to someone like me who was so impressed with her Little Professor as a youth. Leapster also has plenty of games to choose from for all different ages and skill levels. If your little one has a favorite superhero or three, Leapster has those as well. Except Leapster Land, the bad guys mispell words rather than trying to kill off the human race, and BatMan fights crime using long division and multiplication. Also, I've noticed the Leapster games go on sale at half price a few times a year.
The other thing I will tell you, but not my husband, is that our Leapsters have been dropped. So far, no loose parts flail about inside when we move them and, most importantly, they still work. Although don't drop yours to test my theory. They are sturdy, but they're not bouncing balls.
Finally, owning a few Leapsters has given Brian and me the power to make our boys sit down and be quiet. Statue-like, even. There are certain pivotal life moments during which we either have to tie the boys up and gag them or give them a coma-inducing drug so that we can accomplish something. For instance, during a two-hour car ride when the whining and the fighting could cause Brian or me to have a coronary event. Or during a recent night wedding where the kids' meals arrived 20 minutes before the adult meals, so that without the crucial 15-minutes of Leapster play at the table, Brian and I would have had to take turns eating our chicken cordon bleu. I wasn't crazy about letting them play Leapsters at a wedding reception but, hey, I was hungry, and wanted to have a civilized meal despite being in public with my boys at 9pm. What I'm saying, again not so eloquently, is that the Leapsters give us the flexibility of a handheld gaming toy, without having to submit to the mindless and often violent Game Boy genre, which we want to delay for as long as humanly possible, like, forever. (Yeah, I know. It's invevitable. Don't tell me.)
LeapFrog gave me these toys several months ago, and I feel kind of bad that it's taken me this long to post a review. However, having owned the toys for .... um, gosh .... six months, allows me to give you a more valuable review, because every new toy's great for the first few weeks! The play table has been in my family room for the entire time, and John and Ava still play with it. The Leapsters, like I said, have withstood my boys' abuse and held their attention at pivotal moments of MY life, turning hellish parenting moments to peaceful ones. I heartily recommend both toys.
