Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I finally finished The Spaghetti Detectives the other day, and it is definitely one of the others.  The title and the cover art make it seem a little bit Encyclopedia Brown-ish–boys who solve neighborhood mysteries involved in something bigger, that sort of thing.  In reality, it feels a little like Mary Higgins Clark meets “Rear Window:” child abductions, suspicious neighbors, and life or death consequences.  It does have a weirdly light tone for its subject matter, but that’s due to its narrator’s personality.  Rico is a lovable “child proddity” who pulls us into his life from the get-go, whereas Oscar, by contrast, is an actual child prodigy who keeps his own counsel.  The two become involved in a serial kidnapping case; yes, they had a very brief conversation about pasta at their first meeting, but the noodle involved is incidental to the plot, which is far more serious than pretty much anything about the physical book would lead you to believe.  It’s an interesting mystery, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just that a serious story told from a frank, often unintentionally amusing point of view is not quite the same thing as an amusing story.  Kids should find it both interesting and exciting, mind you, but as a parent?  Let’s just say I flinched more than once.  It may be a cultural difference, of course–it was originally published in German–but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s darker than the title and cover would have you believe. If you have a mystery lover, it’s worth your time; just remember that it’s about as much of a light children’s story as Hansel and Gretel.

I requested an ARC of Leza Lowitz’s Up from the Sea because it’s almost perfectly my thing–a verse novel dealing with real events and how they change our lives.  I was excited to start it, I loved reading it, and I would have finished it MUCH sooner if my baby would only go back to sleeping through the night again.  (Being up every night affects how quickly I do what has to be done, which cuts rather deeply into how much time I have left over to read.  Sadness.)  Nevertheless, I stayed up past midnight to finish it last night, and I wasn’t disappointed–it ended as well as it began.

Up from the Sea is narrated by Kai, a seventeen-year-old boy who loses his mother and his grandparents in the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck coastal Japan in March of 2011.  As he struggles to cope with their loss, not to mention the loss of his home, many of his friends, and most of his teachers, he is invited to visit New York and meet with young people who lost their families on 9/11; while there, he reaches out to his American father for the first time since he left Japan.  His first attempt is unsuccessful, but with time and effort, he is able to reconnect with not only his father, but with parts of himself that he abandoned after his father abandoned him. That connections brings healing for Kai, who in turn finds a way to help his community heal as well.

Here’s the awesome thing about this book.  You like survivor stories?  Check.  Stories about overcoming adversity?  Check.  Stories about tragedy bringing people together?  Check.  Stories about father/son relationships?  Check.  Classic underdog sports stories?  Check.  What’s not to love?

It’s a good book, friends, and it comes out on Tuesday.  Don’t miss it!

I WAS going to blog about last night’s ham and noodle casserole, but today was just plain too weird.  In the interest of brevity, the high was going bra shopping BY MYSELF (thanks to my amazing carpool friend!) and finally replacing the cheap, hashed bras that I’ve been wearing for years.  A few thoughts on the process…

1)Buying a bra is WAY more complicated than it feels like it should be.

2)Why does Victoria’s Secret think I’m a D?  I can assure you, NO ONE ELSE ON THIS PLANET thinks I’m a D.

3)Trying on a slew of $40-$50 bras made putting my old bra back on a very depressing experience.  If I’d had time to change at the store after paying, I totally would have.

The low point of the day was having someone pull into my driveway, steal our ladder out of our (open) garage, and make a clean getaway while either the kids or I or all of us were in view of the front windows the entire time.  The kicker is that we didn’t see anything–a neighbor got suspicious and came over to talk to us about it.  (I should probably point out that a rather large bush obscures our view of the driveway from the front windows, but still.)  Ugh.

The rest of the day was just an odd mix of an unexpected nap on the couch, a sad nine-year-old who lost her new waterproof Christmas mittens at school, and a fussy baby.  (Incidentally, if that fussy baby is up in the night the way she has been the last two nights, we’re going back to the pediatrician’s tomorrow.) Perhaps I’ll talk about ham and noodle casserole tomorrow; in the meantime, the sooner I shower, the sooner I can sleep.

Theoretically.  (Again with the fussy baby…)

Rapunzel’s Revenge was easily my girlie’s favorite of the 5 graphic novels she read as possible genre report subjects.  Picture the tale of Rapunzel as a western (with the heroine wielding a very impressive lasso of you-know-what).  Throw in a sidekick from another fairy tale, a few monsters, and a whole lot of action, and you’ve got a story my daughter adored.  My hubby really liked it as well, while I, well…

Here’s the thing–it was good.  I can’t actually come up with anything I didn’t like about it.  It’s just that I don’t love the format of a graphic novel, and while the western setting worked PERFECTLY, that’s not so much my thing either.  I’m going to have to go with an honest “it’s not the book, it’s me,” for this one.  I can totally recommend it–it’s worth your time–because my mind knows it was excellent.  (With an impressively strong female lead to boot.)  I just–I wasn’t feeling it.  But I know I should have been.

Maybe I’ll have more insight when I read the sequel.  Have you read it?  What did you think?

Today?  Let’s see…

I didn’t get to bed until after midnight last night, since the baby was up.  She was up again at 12:30, and then again at 4.  I suctioned her and fed her and held her, but it took an hour to get her to settle, which meant that I got under an hour’s sleep before my three-year-old came into our room to throw up.  Then there was diarrhea…and the realization that food sounded unpleasant to me…and the making of a doctor’s appointment for the baby at 7 pm, so I could leave the other kids with Daddy.

That sounds sad, right?  Here’s the thing–it is what it is.  Some days of parenthood are like that–we all know it.  And while yes, I’m all about today being over, it could have been SO much worse.  My son threw up into my garbage can and then had diarrhea in the toilet–no cleanup for me!  I ate very little today, but I haven’t thrown up.  My amazing carpooling friend picked up a few things for me at the grocery store–the very most important things–and we got Amoxicillin for an ear infection at the doctor’s, which is FAR preferable to hearing that it’s a virus and there’s nothing to be done.  I am looking forward, then, to a better day tomorrow, and eventual WELLNESS for the baby (although that’s a lofty goal this time of year).  Maybe even more sleep tonight.

Hope springs eternal!

1)Semi-annual sales are a blessing and a curse.  I really need a new bra, so I’m planning on hitting Victoria’s Secret soon, but oh, how tempted I am by Yankee Candle’s 5 large candles for $55!

2)Today my hubby bought me cream puffs from Costco and exercise pants.  Talk about counter-productive…

3)And lest you think he was being anything other than sweet, I do exercise, I don’t have clothes for it, and these pants say Sexy Redhead on them.

4)I’m pretty sure letting my 9-year-old stay up on New Year’s Eve wasn’t worth it.

5)My carpool friend is going to take the kids to school on Monday morning, which is usually my thing.  The Monday after Christmas break?  Hallelujah!

6)As much as I rather enjoy listing random thoughts, it’s Saturday night and I have to practice my hymns for Sunday.  Goodnight all!

Because really, I’m planning on playing games tonight.  Yesterday was my 17th wedding anniversary, however, and so when my hubby brought me home a late lunch (a vendor took him out before he left work, so he’d eaten already), I finished May B. over Panda Express while he vacuumed out my just-emptied closet and assembled the closet organizer that matches his.

(And yes, we are totally at the age and stage in life where time to organize and complete projects without the kids is a completely valid way to celebrate.  If that worries you, you clearly don’t have four children, one of them a crawling baby; rest assured, however, that we also ate ice cream, watched shows, and slept in.)

Here’s the thing about May B.; I can’t tell if I liked it but didn’t quite love it, or if it merely suffered from the ending being read in frustratingly small portions.  I rather suspect the latter, although I did struggle to relate to May’s way of handling her unexpected abandonment in a dugout on the Kansas prairie.  If I’d read it as a child, I think that would have seriously gotten in the way of me enjoying the book.  After all, I’m a bit too much of a worrier to understand May’s periods of lassitude; I might not have known what to do, but I would have sought some measure of reassurance by throwing myself into the kinds of daily tasks that still needed to be done.  My hubby, however, responds differently to stress than I do, and so I could understand May far better as an adult.  (I could also respect how her learning disability affected her sense of self, which in turn also affected her response.  Again, not something I would have understood as a child.)

Ultimately, May makes the brave choice and (with help!) finds her way home; the way she faces the future is, again, something I can respect but not relate to, but it still makes for a good story.  If you like historical verse novels, this is worth your time.  (But try not to read most of it in big chunks, and then finish the last part in tiny bits because of a crazy schedule.  That never enhances your reading experience!)

Lester’s Dreadful Sweaters is the sort of book that’s hard to classify.  Can a book be macabre when it’s all about, you know, dreadful sweaters?  Can being a curiously speedy knitter be menacing?  Can a children’s story about clothing be creepy?

Possibly, yes.  Imagine a boy slightly reminiscent of Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory.”  Imagine an indeterminate cousin Clara who may well be Ralphie’s aunt of the same name from “A Christmas Story”, given the sort of gifts she delights in giving.  Now, picture what happens when she moves in with Lester’s family and has (apparently) nothing to do but knit.  Throw in abundant alliteration and a bit of a Tim Burton-y feel, and voila!  Lester’s Dreadful Sweaters.  If the ending were different, it could be a children’s horror story; as it is, it truly is delightful.

Put another way?  I put it on hold at my sister’s library in Colorado so that her family could enjoy it.

Her youngest is 12.

I’m assuming none of us are shocked that I missed a blog post on Christmas, right?  If I’d thought about it soon enough, I would have posted a brief ‘Merry Christmas’ message, but I didn’t, and I’m okay with that–I was busy being a Mommy and doing family things, which is how Christmas should be!  I hope you all felt as blessed as I did.

In other news, I actually managed to finish a book the day after Christmas–mostly because I had about 6 pages left but couldn’t finish it Christmas night because I was falling asleep.  I picked up Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck:  And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman for my free book from the library’s summer reading program; it came out while I was working at Borders, and it looked funny enough that it’s been on my list ever since.  I got around to it finally, and I have to say–it WAS funny.  It was so funny that even when I couldn’t relate to her subject matter (I’m not really old enough to be the perfect audience), I didn’t care–it was worth it for the writing.  (Ephron, after all, wrote the screenplays for “When Harry Met Sally” and “Sleepless in Seattle,” and co-wrote a slew of others.  She’s earned her funny label.)  It was also brief–under 140 pages–which made it kind of a perfect holiday read.  I put it on hold for my sister at her library in Colorado (in large print, no less!), I’m passing my copy on to a friend to read, and I’m recommending it to you.  Go to it!

Technically, I picked up Under the Egg for my oldest; I saw it at the library and knew that my mystery-loving, artist daughter needed to read it.  Truthfully,  I wanted to read it just as badly, and it’s only now making its way down to my daughter’s to-read bookcase.  (Free time isn’t exactly abundant this time of year, and it took a month or two before I decided to try reading it on the treadmill.  It took longer than it would have otherwise, but it happened!)  I’m betting she’ll love it, because really, it’s an art history mystery.  It’s MADE for her.

The story begins with Theodora Tenpenny, whose artist grandfather died a few months previously. Thirteen-year-old Theo is left to care for her house, her in-some-way-mentally-ill mother, and herself, with the princely sum of $463 and her grandfather’s dying promise that there’s a treasure ‘under the egg.’  Theo is competent and resourceful, but her worries are starting to overwhelm her by the time she discovers what her grandfather meant; that discovery is the beginning of a summer filled with new people, new experiences, and at least one priceless work of art.  There are twists and turns in abundance, but Theo ultimately learns the story behind her grandfather’s life and legacy, gaining a few friends–and a fresh outlook on life–in the process.

(Okay, there were some cliches there, and I’m sorry–there’s always a lot on your mind the week of Christmas!  Basically, everything comes together in a perfectly lovely way at the end, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book.  SO worth it.  Try it and see!)