That was about my reaction when my oldest read Sarah, Plain and Tall, and loved it, and wanted ‘the next one.’  I knew that Skylark existed, and so that one went on hold for her, but when further investigation on Goodreads showed FIVE books in the series, I was floored.  How did I not know about this?  Because I love Patricia MacLachlan, and I LOVE Sarah, Plain and Tall.  And now that I know about the other three books, I’ve been getting them (one at a time) for my oldest, waiting until she’s done, and then reading each one before taking it back to the library.  She just finished More Perfect Than the Moon (#4), and so while feeding and burping the baby this afternoon, I took the time to run through it myself.

Here’s my confession–I didn’t love it quite as much as I loved the first three, but I can’t decide if that’s because it wasn’t quite as good or because of the subject matter.  This one is about Cassie, Sarah’s biological daughter, and her reaction to her parents’ announcement that a new baby is coming.  She is determined that she won’t talk to or look at the ‘terrible baby,’ and simultaneously worried that her mama will die in childbirth like her half-siblings’ mother.  How she works through this–during the course of her mother’s pregnancy–might just be every bit as good of a story as the book’s three predecessors; for somewhat obvious reasons, however, the plot was less appealing to me.  The book is still thoughtfully written and enjoyable, though, so I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and chalk my reaction up to poor timing.

It happens.

For those of you who don’t know, the women’s organization within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (yes, the Mormons) is called the Relief Society, and they’re called that for a reason.  Members of the Relief Society have been serving others for almost two centuries now; some of that service has changed somewhat in nature, but some of it remains the same.  Case in point–the Relief Society asked me about meals just before I had my baby, discovered that we’d need meals a lot more after my parents left than while they were staying with us, and arranged for us to receive four meals over the course of a week or so, starting with the day my parents drove home to Idaho.  Three of those meals came this week, which was beyond wonderful with Baby Girl in the hospital, and let me tell you something:  bringing over a casserole can sound like a cliche; it can even seem trite in the face of tragedy when the tragedy is not your own.  When your not-yet-three-week-old is in the hospital,  however, and you and your hubby are passing each other like ships in the night to spend time with both her and the kids at home, there is nothing cliche or trite about other woman feeding you and your family so that you have one less worry on your plate.  This is being Christ-like at its best–showing up at someone else’s door, food in hand.  These four women were different ages, in different stages of life, and from different places, but they all volunteered to feed my family in addition to their own for one night.  (Technically, it was five–one woman didn’t sign up but brought me over a spontaneous lasagna.  With home-made bread.)  Being the recipient of such service–which is what the ‘Relief’ in Relief Society is all about–is humbling.

It’s also difficult to write about without sounding sappy, and since my sleep-deprived brain isn’t doing “difficult” very well, I’m just going to leave you with a quote instead.

“God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom… In the Doctrine and Covenants we read about how important it is to ‘…succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.’ (D&C 81:5.) So often, our acts of service consist of simple encouragement or of giving mundane help with mundane tasks, but what glorious consequences can flow from mundane acts and from small but deliberate deeds!” (“Small Acts of Service,” Ensign, Dec 1974, 2).”

That is as true today as it was in 1974.  To the women who served me and my family in the last week and a half–thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I felt my Savior’s love through you.

Last night, after her first bath and some serious trauma removing the oxygen tube circles from her cheeks, my home-from-the-hospital 3-week-old slept from 10:30 pm to 7:30 am.

Seriously.  That’s awesome, right?  I should have woken up amazed and shockingly well rested?

Oh, if only.  And in an exceptionally cruel twist, yes, my two-year-old was up briefly once, but it was my 8-year-old that was up multiple times, for who knows how long at a stretch.  (This sleep-deprived mommy wasn’t coherent enough to figure that out.)  She had woken up with ear pain at 9:30-ish, been given Ibuprofen, and gone back to sleep; apparently the medicine didn’t help nearly as much as one might hope.  At various times in the night she took a q-tip to her own ear (I only learned this in the morning), snuggled with Mommy on the couch, joined Mommy and Daddy in bed for a bit, tried laying down in the living room, and ultimately went back to bed.  This morning she came along with me and her baby sister to the follow-up RSV doctor’s appointment, where she handled getting her ears flushed out like the little trooper she is.  She had ear drops in the afternoon and they were painful; when I gave them to her at bedtime, however, it was a nightmare.  This is a BRAVE girl, mind you.  She handles pain and illness like a little Stoic, and yet these drops hurt her so badly she was sobbing in my arms.  And let me tell you, as I was holding her and trying to figure out what to do, it about killed me to hear her say “It helped when you sang, Mom.”  Because singing when you’re trying not to cry for your child is not so easy.

The good news is that after further perusal of the fine print on the pharmacy papers, I realized that she can sit upright and (presumably) let the drops drain out a bit after 60 seconds, which should help (as should a good night’s sleep).  The bad news is that we’ve got four more days of drops.

Here’s praying that she hurts less tomorrow.

…are not fun places to sleep in.  And my baby girl has RSV, so we ended up at the ER on Sunday night (just before midnight).  My hubby and I have been switching off at the hospital and at home, and our friends and neighbors have been so very kind to help as much as they can; I confess, however, that I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again.  We’re hoping the little one will be coming home tomorrow.  In the meantime, I’m not going to attempt a longer post just now.  Sleep well, folks!

That, sadly, is how I felt last night after finishing Cece Bell’s El Deafo.  Which was doubly sad, because not only was I disappointed in one of this year’s three Newberys, but I was disappointed by the ending after being impressed by most of the book.  And THAT was made worse by the fact that I wasn’t expecting to be impressed by the book at all; graphic novels are not so much my thing, and I’m still bothered that they couldn’t find ONE traditional novel to add to this year’s Newbery winners.  (You understand that I’m not talking about taking any awards away, but for Pete’s sake–they could have just picked a third (or fourth!) Honor book.)

Anyway.  The premise of El Deafo is relatively simple; it’s based on the author’s own experiences of growing up mostly deaf after an illness.  The main character spends a year in a school with others like her, learning the basics of lip reading (among other things), and then heads to a regular public school with a “Phonic Ear” (a hearing aid that picks up her teacher’s voice through a microphone the teacher wears).  She soon discovers that she can hear more than she’s intended to hear through her Phonic Ear, but that only serves as a distraction from her main problem–social acceptance.  She is acutely embarrassed by her hearing aid and cannot bring herself to reach out to anyone around her, let alone talk about her hearing, and so she ends up with friends that treat her differently than she would prefer.  As an adult, of course, you wish she’d just SAY SOMETHING, but I still remember how hard it was to say the important things when I was that age.  Bell does a nice job of taking us through Cece’s friendship blunders, and the graphic novel format actually adds to the effectiveness here, which is not something I ever thought I’d say. For two hundred plus pages, then, the book impressed me.

What disappointed me, however, was the ending.  The story finds resolution in two ways, really, and I was happy with one of those ways–just not with the other.  Both the parent and the teacher in me found the second way undesirable, and the former student in me was left wondering if the situation was really as positive as the author presents it to be.  (I don’t know that I can be more specific without giving definite spoilers.)  It is possible that Bells recognizes some of what I ended up feeling, since she seems to do her best to end that part of the resolution on sort of a neutral note, but I’m not sure how much better that makes me feel.  Like I said–I was impressed by most of the book, but ultimately disappointed.  Take from that what you will.

Last weekend my two-year-old was sick in one of the worst possible ways.  It was bad enough that he had whatever cold virus was going around at the moment–he was coughing pretty badly already–but when a child gets a stomach bug on top of that, the 24 hours or so of relative dehydration is a nightmare.  My poor boy coughed all night long last Sunday night, and when it got so miserable he would just cry that pathetic it-hurts-and-I’m-sick-and-I-hate-this cry I went in and snuggled with him while he coughed.  And when, an hour or so later, I got up to feed my baby girl after being liberally coughed on by a sick, sick toddler, I figured the chances of the baby staying well weren’t great.

She didn’t.  And none of us are really surprised.  And I’m afraid that having a sick baby, in and of itself, is one of those things that doesn’t really get better–it doesn’t matter how many kids you have.  On the other hand, managing the sick baby situation does get better with practice; here’s why.

1)I know how to suction.  My oldest had RSV at 6 weeks old and spent 5 days at Primary Children’s Hospital; the nurses there taught me how to suction a baby’s nose correctly.  (I often wonder if we could have avoided the hospital if I had known that several days earlier.)  Suctioning didn’t work for my middle two,  which was frustrating, but this baby is like my oldest.  I can suction her before I feed her and get gobs of green stuff out, and I know it makes a difference in both her breathing and her eating.  I LOVE having something I can do to help.

2)I’ve had sick babies before.  No, it doesn’t get a ton better, but at least I know that babies do get sick–and they also get well.  It’s tiring, and they’re fussier and won’t eat as well, but that 5 days at Primary’s was the exception, not the norm.

3)It’s easier to accept that it takes time.  A virus is a virus, and it has to run its course.  That’s not fun, but repetition does get you used to it, so to speak.

You may have guessed that this post is my way of staying positive; managing it does get better, yes, BUT…

I still really wish my 17-day-old baby girl weren’t sick.

Let me start off by saying that I know my mother isn’t perfect.  We do things differently, and some days the way she does thing is SO different from the way I do that it frustrates me just because (I got the OCD/perfectionist gene from both sides, in case you were wondering).  But my parents have been staying with us since just under a week before the baby was born, and my mother has spent the vast majority of that time (three weeks or so) asking how she can help me.  She has quietly done most of the laundry and almost all of the dishes; she has showered my girls when I’ve asked her to; she has bathed my sick and grouchy son when I’ve needed her to; and she has fed and burped and changed the baby when I’ve needed her to.  She has encouraged me to run errands by myself, she has picked up the kindergarteners from school, and she has run errands for me whenever I have asked.  She is unfailingly patient with my children and incredibly good at working with my two-year-old.  She made sure my hubby and I had a night out together after the baby was born.  I came home from an exceedingly rare opportunity to watch my oldest during her dance class to find my son bathed and my mother cleaning my bathroom counter.  She has set her own alarm so that she can wake up my girlies in time for school and get them started getting dressed, and she has done ALL of this three months shy of her 70th birthday.  And so I sit here, tears running down my cheeks, not CARING that we do things differently, because this incredible woman has done nothing but serve me for close to a month.

My parents leave tomorrow.  And I will be crying then, too.  Because even at 35 years old, sometimes you just really want your mom.

That’s about how reading Unless It Moves the Human Heart:   The Craft and Art of Writing made me feel.  On the one hand, as a teacher, I could appreciate some of Roger Rosenblatt’s discussions; on the other hand, as a writer (but not of fiction), I had a hard time relating to his views on writing.   To be fair, I’ve always known that my approach to writing is perhaps the exception rather than the norm.  Writing may actually be the mystical process Rosenblatt describes for the majority of writers, or perhaps the majority of writers of fiction.  Still, as a teacher, I don’t think he spent enough time acknowledging that his own views on what writing is–and on what GOOD writing is–are not the only views to be had.  (I also had a hard time with how seriously his students took those views…although he absolutely acknowledges that he wrote about the sense of a writing class, rather than the actual words of his students, so perhaps it wasn’t really as bad as it seemed.  Who actually asks a writing teacher, no matter how critically acclaimed, questions like “Where should writers live?” and “Should writers be friends with other writers?”  How are you original enough to be a good writer if you’re looking to someone else to tell you where you should live and who your associates should be?)

Anyway.  My friend Britt picked it for Book Club, and it spoke to her more than it did to me (of course, she DOES write fiction).  And there’s always the effect of post-pregnancy hormones and sleep deprivation to be considered.  All in all, however, I found it interesting…but I wouldn’t have picked it up on my own.  And while it was an interesting read–and it did provide some food for thought–I would have been okay if I hadn’t read it.  I’m also,  you understand, okay that I did.

Hence the ambivalence.

It seems selfish to complain about today, really, because while yes, I have an 11 day old baby, I also have my parents staying with me to help out. Still, my hubby ended up feeling icky the second half of the day, which changed our evening plans, and then my poor two-year-old boy, who’s been coughing up a lung all day, threw up all over my shoulder.  (Although at least we were standing on the laminate.)  And the last thing he ate was about the only food I feed my children but dislike intensely enough that I don’t touch it myself–raw bell pepper.  (I can’t abide bell peppers, but hey, my children like them; far be it from me not to take advantage of a vegetable they all enjoy!)  Oh, the smell!  He was fussy or sleepy (or both) for the rest of the day.

Here’s the thing.  My parents cleaned up most of the mess; the last load of gross laundry is in the washing machine as we speak; and my son, despite two brief naps today, went happily to sleep at bedtime.  It could have been SO much worse, and I know it.  The problem is, of course, that my personality is all about anticipation.  I was DESPERATELY looking forward to going out with my hubby tonight (however cheaply and briefly), and when those plans changed, my personality joined forces with the post-pregnancy hormones and the sleep-deprivation to make it feel like the end of the world.  And THEN there was the vomit, and let’s be honest–if there’s a worse way for your day to be derailed than with unexpected child vomit, I’m not sure what it is.  (I am, of course, excluding injury and real tragedy here.)  And so I say–is this day over yet?

I can’t end on such an overly dramatic note, though, because yes, I KNOW I have help and I am blessed and the day could have been so much worse.  And so I leave you with a quote that is possibly overused but still very, very applicable.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”

So said Mary Ann Radmacher.  Goodnight, folks!

Because that, my friends, is exactly when I finished Sarah Addison Allen’s First Frost.  After all,  you’ve got to have SOMEthing to do when you’ve put the baby down and you’re waiting to see if it’s safe to go to bed yourself!  I did doze off many times during the last few chapters, but that is in no way related to the quality of the book (and in EVERY way related to being in the newborn stage of life again).  The important thing is that I thoroughly enjoyed First Frost; it’s a sequel to the author’s first book, Garden Spells, picking up 10 years later.  (And yes, you really need to read Garden Spells first.  It’s my favorite of hers, however, so it’s no hardship.)  The theme of sisterhood is revisited, but it’s joined by an exploration of heritage and what it means to be family, as well as how our decisions (including the decision to decide for ourselves) create our future.