Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

It’s late and I still have things to do, but I saw “Wicked” in the theater with my two older girlies tonight, and I’m pretty sure that somehow Rupert Everett and Harry Connick Jr. somehow had a love child and he plays Fiyero in the movie. If you don’t believe me, find a clip of him singing ‘Dancing Through Life’…

I mean, it’s always hectic when the kids are out of school, but we’ve also been working on neighbor gifts this week (not to mention sleeping in after New Year’s). We did have a nice New Year’s Eve, though–my hubby and I had a beautifully chill day with lunch from Cafe Rio, and the kiddos got home between 4 and 5 or so. We really just had snacks instead of a meal (although we paid for that with the hangry the next day), and my younger two girlies finished a movie they’d been watching and showered while the rest of us played a game. After the game was done we did fireworks and watched ‘The One and Only Ivan’–which was pretty good for a movie adaption of an amazing book–and then I put my youngest to bed and showered while everyone else played a game. The older three all stayed up until midnight–such is life with teens and a tween–but at least we all slept in. On New Years Day we played games and made caramels and got to bed early (thank goodness!), and on Thursday I ran errands with my younger girls and puttered. Yesterday we focused on neighbor gifts, and today we have a wedding at noon!

Anyway. I did finish Wires Crossed this morning while our chocolate muffins were in the oven, and I have to say–it was pretty excellent. It nailed the shifting friendships/self-consciousness about differences aspects of middle school, and at the end it did that thing where the level of talking about feelings and motivations isn’t quite realistic but models healthy growth, communications, and relationships so well that it’s better that way for its audience. (Because middle schoolers need all the healthy modeling they can get.) Mia is thrilled that her best science camp friend is moving to her town, but he ends up being more popular at school than she expected, and complications ensue.

Also a robot.

I almost wish I’d found this one in August–I think my middle girlie will quite enjoy it–but such is life. I’ll have to hope for another good graphic novel to come along in time for her birthday!

As opposed to Christmas week, that is. Is anyone really shocked that I missed all of Christmas week? There were all of the Christmas things most people do, plus a few more graphic novels to read before they got wrapped, plus Disney outfits to be found for a Disney-themed Christmas Eve (Olaf, Belle, Fix-It Felix, Wreck-It Ralph, and Anna and Elsa), Mickey cut-out cookies to be made (and, apparently, decorated) as well as mac and cheese with Disney pasta shapes, etc., etc., etc. It was, however, a lovely Christmas–as my Grandpa Mather would say, the Lord sure has been good to us–and now my kiddos are up at my in-laws’ house while my hubby and I have a day or two to chill, it being our anniversary today. It’s lovely to sleep in and not have to feed people!

It’s also lovely to be able to pick and choose random tasks that need doing, and at the moment I’ve decided to review Erin Bow’s Simon Sort of Says, which was a Newbery Honor book for this year and which I loved, loved, LOVED. I want to say that everyone should read it, but since it’s about the survivor of a school shooting, I imagine there are people with their own trauma that might not be up to it. (Although Simon’s story is told with such a beautiful blend of poignancy and hilarity that it’s worth trying by any of those people who think it’s possible they might be up to it.) As for how good it is–if Gary D. Schmidt had written Simon’s story, it couldn’t possibly be any better of a book than it already is, and there’s not really any higher praise I can give. I was enthralled before the end of the first page and stayed enthralled all the way through; I laughed out loud, I absolutely cried, and I’ve already bought my own copy of it. It is an amazing book. (I’m trying to decide if I should give out plot details–do I mention the emus? the disturbingly/hilariously incompetent funeral home employee? a certain squirrel?–but I can’t possibly do justice to it. Just read it already!)

Anyway. That reminds me that I don’t have the ALA awards marked on my calendar for this year yet, so I’m going to move on to other tasks. I hope you’re all relaxing today!

Look at me go, right? And considering I’ve already loaded and run the dishwasher, given blood, taken care of our overdue library books, completed an Amazon return, and (mostly) eaten lunch, I’d say I’m having a fairly productive day. What’s more, I finished reading Wendy Mass’s Lo & Behold last night, and I’ve decided that it will be one of the graphic novels my 15-year-old gets for Christmas. (She’ll probably get the other one after Christmas, since it will be a lot harder to finish potential Christmas gift books when Christmas vacation starts in half an hour or so.) I was reading it as a possibility for my 9-year-old because it seemed on the short side, but it turns out that the pages are thinner than your average graphic novel, because there are at least 200 of them. (Not that that’s terribly long for my sophomore, you understand, but it’s at least not TOO short.)

Plot-wise it reminds me a bit of Debbie Fong’s Next Stop, although Lo & Behold was published first; both involve a road trip, a loving father, and mother issues, not to mention a new friendship and some much-needed emotional healing. The road trip in Lo & Behold, however, is a short one, and Addie and her dad travel together. As he works at a unique sort of summer job, Addie grudgingly starts to emerge from the shell she’s been building around herself since her mother’s accident; how and why she manages, however, is part of a plot element I wasn’t expecting to enjoy nearly as much as I did. Mass’s graphic novel debut is an exploration of both the possibilities and (to a lesser extent) the limitations of modern technology, and her handling of the topic is impressive. The emotional themes are less suited to the youngest full-length graphic novel enthusiasts, but they’re excellent nonetheless; if I were a 6th- or 7th-grade English teacher, I’d be tempted to teach this one. (You could do so much with it–and the kids would likely enjoy reading it as well!) If you need a last minute book gift for a late tween or earlier teen, take a closer look at this one.

The one good thing about getting the plague, I suppose, is that I ended up being able to finish the Christmas audiobook I was sure I wouldn’t end up having time for. After all, the window to enjoy Christmas stories to the full without infringing on other seasons is relatively small, right? (Except for “White Christmas.” Any time is a perfectly acceptable time to watch “White Christmas.”) And I could only listen to Emily Stone’s Love, Holly at 1.5 speed, because accents require more concentration. Having little to no energy, however, meant that the difficult Christmas puzzle got finished and so did Love, Holly. And boy–it was a doozy.

I enjoyed it, certainly; I just wasn’t expecting the concept of fate (with its constantly interconnecting threads) to play such a starring role. Holly and Emma and Jack’s connections grow more and more multifaceted over the course of the novel, and what might look like a Christmas romance is definitely something more. If you want a story about forgiveness, second chances, and growth, this is the Christmas story for you (assuming, of course, that you’re already familiar with Dickens). Two separate car accidents change the lives of two groups of people, and how they work through those changes makes for an involved but satisfying story. I didn’t love the amount of language–contemporary British novels often do have more than I’d prefer–but it wasn’t constant, at least, and the characters were relatable. Next time you’re looking for something seasonal for Christmas, give this one a try!

In the meantime, I did my pre-Christmas Walmart run today–and survived. Hallelujah!

Thankfully, though, it didn’t get me nearly as bad as it did my children. My body did purge itself of everything I ate yesterday, true, but I only had two bouts of throwing up, and the other issue wasn’t as bad, either. Because I ran errands in the morning and then got sick in the late afternoon, however, I never did manage a blog post; on the other hand, I finished reading Tori Sharp’s Just Pretend in the wee hours when I couldn’t sleep, so I’ll just review that today and it all works out, right?

Anyway. I had a faint hope that Just Pretend might prove to be a good gift graphic novel for one of my girls, but because it’s a memoir, the plot flow is a bit disjointed, and I don’t see it being a perfect fit for any of them. They’ll all still probably enjoy it, though–although my middle girlie maybe less so, since the fantasy element is definitively not her thing. Tori escapes from the rough patches in her life by imagining (and writing) a fantasy novel, and with her parents’ divorce, sibling struggles, some friend drama, and a move, she’s got a fair amount to escape. I wasn’t desperately engaged with the fantasy portion of the plot, but then, I don’t read much fantasy anymore; I think fans of the genre will probably enjoy it. I wanted to strangle both of her parents AND her brother as well, but most of that came from my own parental experiences; I’ll be interested to see what my kiddos think. (And if this isn’t the most cohesive review ever, well–I’ve mostly eaten some saltines today, and I got very little sleep last night.)

Bottom line? I think kids dealing with divorce or kids passionate about fantasy writing are the best audience for this one, but it was still a (mostly) enjoyable read for me. Any other opinions of it out there?

I really don’t have the brain power to focus on this review, but guess what? I’m doing it anyway. Not, you understand, out of an excess of zeal or anything; it’s just that Jamie Sumner’s Maid for It was due and not renewable at the library on Tuesday and (clearly) needs to be returned, and I can’t actually bring myself to put it back on hold again just so I can put off reviewing it AGAIN. (After all, it was a read-aloud with my 15-year-old, and we finished it weeks ago.) I was going to do it Wednesday but went Christmas shopping instead, since my youngest was finally back in school after the flu; today my 15-year-old is home for her second day, so I’m available (and desperately hoping no one else will get it).

Alrighty then, folks, here we go. Maid for It has plenty of heart–all of Sumner’s books do–and that heart helps readers through a difficult topic. Remember Dusti Bowling’s Across the Desert? Maid for It also features a daughter struggling with her mother’s addiction to painkillers, only Franny’s mom finally got clean; she’s stayed clean, too, except that when she gets into a car accident (one that isn’t even her fault!), her thigh injury means a prescription for painkillers, and Franny is terrified. Not only is there the danger of her mother falling off the wagon, so to speak; she also can’t work, which means that there’s not going to be money for hospital bills. In desperation, Franny takes over her mother’s housecleaning business on the sly, except that the extra work is about to drown her. Franny manages to arrange help from an unexpected source, but that’s about the time her carefully controlled life starts to seriously unravel.

My 15-year-old and I were completely into this one. She wanted me to read every chance we got–I love it when that happens!–and we got through it in record time. How Franny and her mom find their way through the newest crisis in their lives is a story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit while tugging firmly at your heartstrings; it’s also a poignant reminder that people are complicated, and their worst is never the sum total of who they are. I highly recommend this one.

In the meantime, I’m praying that the plague stops here and that we can juggle and manage the important parts of Christmas successfully. Here’s hoping everyone else’s households stay healthy!

So–Friday. There was totally going to be a book review, except that I spent all morning puttering (usefully) and helping my oldest and my hubby get out the door to drive to Vegas for a Brad Paisley concert (picking up a friend in Kanosh on the way), and then it was early day and my son forgot there was ultimate frisbee after school and then wanted me to drive him there. I did that and then walked to pick up my youngest, but my son got home early and was feeling sick. I had to leave him to pick up my 15-year-old from school, and when I came back he’d thrown up but thought he was feeling a bit better. (Spoiler alert: he wasn’t.) I decided to cancel piano–yeah, I could have taken just his sister, but I really wasn’t feeling it, and our piano teacher is elderly with occasional health struggles–and he’d thrown up again by the time I left for Costco (we were almost out of milk). I was on the way home when he called me on his sister’s phone, miserable–he was still throwing up, and when I got home it was obvious that he felt wretched. On and on the wretched retching went–always contained, thankfully–while I did copious amounts of laundry from earlier in the week and didn’t get to bed until almost 1. At 3-ish the diarrhea started, and then he came in to snuggle at bit at 5-ish, and I hadn’t actually fallen back asleep by the time my hubby and my oldest got home at 6. (Yes, 6 in the morning. It was a quick trip.) I wasn’t going to disturb my finally-sleeping son, so I gave up my spot in the bed for my exhausted hubby and tried the couch…only I couldn’t manage to actually fall back asleep, and eventually my youngest woke up sometime after 7.

Saturday the travelers slept until noon and my poor boy’s system just kept trying to purge itself. I did chores and my oldest worked while my hubby took our youngest to see her friend in the Nutcracker, and then he and I got to bed earlier than usual (hallelujah!). Sunday we had a special stake conference with Elder Quentin L. Cook and Sister Camille N. Johnson, which we all made it to except my son, who still wasn’t feeling great. My oldest worked again and the rest of us were having a chill afternoon until my youngest started in with the retching. Have I mentioned the noise? The worst noises of the kind my children have EVER made, and they just went on, and on, and on. I let her watch whatever she wanted while the rest of us enjoyed the First Presidency Christmas Devotional–anything to distract her from the awfulness–but when the diarrhea set in for her, I knew it was going to be an awfully long night. Maxi pads were put to a use for which they were certainly never intended, and there were smells and more retching and changes of certain articles of clothing pretty much all night long. I spent the night on Clifford–our big red couch–but couldn’t fall asleep until after “Inside Out” was over with, and even then it was hard to tell what level of sleep actually happened. (Certainly NOT an impressive one.) She has yet to keep anything down today except for tiny sips of water-when she drinks more she just throws it up, as she did the one saltine she tried–and we let my son go to band this morning only because his concert is next week. My hubby picked him up and brought him home before he left for work, because I didn’t want to leave my youngest and I most certainly wasn’t letting her get more than 20 feet from a bathroom. It’s true he can now keep food down, but all he wanted was a piece of bread this morning, and I sure as heck wasn’t letting him stay for the whole school day on that. (Or eat school lunch, which he didn’t want anyway.) I did enough cleaning and organizing to make a solid difference today, but I’m certainly not bursting with energy (although tomorrow will probably be worse).

On the other hand, last night I did manage to finish listening to Renee Watson’s (pretend the appropriate accent is over that middle ‘e’) Ways to Make Sunshine, which is on the Battle of the Books list for my daughter’s elementary school this year. It’s shorter and easier than the sort of middle grade to which I normally gravitate, but the review that mentions it as Watson’s version of Ramona Quimby feels spot on. Ryan Hart’s family is moving to a smaller house, and that brings the sort of up-and-down changes that bring tribulation to a fourth grader’s soul. She figures out how to deal with them, however, and I’m expecting my own fourth grader to enjoy and relate to this slice-of-life offering for her age group. (Just as soon as she manages to both be awake and alert AND keep food and drink inside of her where it belongs.) It’ll be easy reading for her, true, but that will make it accessible to a wider variety of fourth graders. If you’re looking for a lovely piece of realistic fiction for that age group to go under your Christmas tree, this one is a solid choice.

When it comes to positive, relatively clean women’s fiction with satisfying endings, I find Katherine Center to be a fairly solid choice. Some of her books are less believable than others, sure, but her characters are likable and her stories have depth beyond the romantic relationship. I have, therefore, been slowly working my way through her backlist, and my latest listen is Everyone Is Beautiful (finished today). It was originally published in 2009, which seemed appropriate–it focuses on motherhood, and I had my second child in 2009–and while there were very enjoyable things about it, I do think her writing has gotten better.

Here’s the thing, though–some of the parts that weren’t my favorite were just hard to read about when you’ve been through some of them yourself. Children do take a toll on a marriage–for reasons beyond what Center’s book (ahem) centers on–and parenting is exhausting, and depending on how those struggles are represented, it can still feel like it’s too soon for those struggles to serve as entertainment. The one thing that legitimately felt like a newer-author sort of weakness was the pacing. When you read a lot you have a pretty solid feel to what the angle of a story arc should feel like, and Everyone Is Beautiful has too long and slow of a buildup paired with a definitely short period of resolution. If I’d been enjoying the buildup more I might have cared less, but again–too soon. As Lanie tries to cope with a significant move for her husband’s career, she realizes that she may have lost too much of herself on the altar of motherhood. Trying to figure how how to get the right amount back–because you can’t actually go back, so there has to be balance and compromise–is her mountain to climb, and there are some consequences before she figures out what the right amount is. The ending is definitely satisfying, however, and that made up for some of my wincing. Some readers might find Lanie’s struggle cathartic, and that does make sense; it just wasn’t so for me.

I really meant to post last week, just like I really meant to post yesterday; last week, however, was all about pies and Thanksgiving, and yesterday I was too tired to do anything that required real thought. (I did dice a bunch of ham, though.) Pie Night requires shopping at the beginning of the week, followed by 24-48 hours of intermittent pie making, followed by packing up pies/pie ingredients/overnight things/Thanksgiving food assignment needs to head up to my in-laws’ house. And THEN there’s the eating of the pies, the prepping of Thanksgiving food, Thanksgiving dinner with family, and games. We did come home Thanksgiving night this year, but between tired kids and the need to decorate for Christmas (I don’t love it when Thanksgiving’s so late), well–it took a lot out of everybody. We were on the road to recovery when my hubby took the middles to Saturday night’s BYU game–a pox on games that start at 8:15 pm!–and then last night I took the older girls to see their cousin play Babette in her high school’s production of ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ (Which I found unexpectedly moving.) So MUCH tired!

Anyway. I certainly need to review books still, but for today, here’s our pie rundown:

Me: This Apple Cherry Cream Cheese Pie, which got overdone. I wish I could taste it at the proper level of doneness–and I wish Utah stores actually sold McIntosh apples.

My Hubby: This Mountain Dew Pie with Doritos Crust. The flavor wasn’t terrible–it had the sweet-salty thing going for it, even if in a strange way–but the tough, rubbery texture of the Doritos in the crust was not enjoyable.

Child #1: This Grape Cream Pie. It was pretty good–kind of like a grape popsicle–but the flavor would have been much better with a homemade crust rather than a cheap store-bought one. On the other hand, she was too busy with schoolwork to want to make one, and I respect that.

Child #2: This Strawberry Lemonade Freezer Pie, which might have been my favorite one of the night. Bright flavors are a happy thing!

Child #3: He made his up. It would have been good if he’d stuck with a brownie layer (from a box mix), a whipped cream layer, and a cut-up candy bar layer, but for a “crust” he got his younger sister to help him pull the colorful bits off of two boxes of Cosmic brownies and then mushed them all together with some milk before pressing it into a springform pan. The gooey result was definitely not my favorite thing.

Child #4: This Homemade Oreo Ice Cream Pie, which was incredibly rich but undeniable tasty.

That was it for our family. Anybody else make any new and delicious pies this year?