Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

You’d think, for example, that once my kiddos went back to school, I’d have all kinds of more time and wouldn’t be missing posts still, right? And yet. The thing is, I spent last week trying to clean up and organize and reclaim my house from the holidays, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was trying to make enough more treats to finish neighbor plates. (Not everyone on our original list got one, but I’ve accepted it was just that kind of year.) Even yesterday was crazy, given that we had an extra youth broadcast in the evening and we’re still adjusting to noon o’clock church. (Yes, I just did that. I wanted to.) I’ve called it on neighbor treats now, at least–now on to not-Christmas-anymore cards–and after restarting my knitting project and hitting Sam’s Club, I came home to eat and finish Sarah Sax’s Picture Day. Which I did.

So here’s the thing. When I went to bed last night I was about 2/3 of the way through and ready to barf if I had to read some variation of the phrase ‘live your truth’ one more time. (Spoiler alert: I had to read it a few more times today. Thankfully there was no barfing.) I was annoyed at the idea, I was annoyed at Viv, and I was planning on quietly returning the book to the library without anyone else in the house seeing it.

BUT.

I’m still annoyed at the live your truth thing, of course, because 1)actual objective truth is a thing and 2)BE KIND is a much better phrase to live by. On the other hand, Viv’s friends do a good job of calling her out on all the mistakes she made in pursuit of ‘her truth’, and Viv herself (with her mom’s help) does take what they say and use it to figure stuff out. I’m still likely to have a quick conversation with my youngest about the dangers of that phrase taking precedence over kindness (and/or reality!), but I do think I’ll pass it on to my kiddos and see what they think.

All the same, I’m awfully glad that the sequel/companion novel looks to be a bit of a different kind of story!