Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

…I really can’t resist a good sports movie.  Who can?  I was flipping channels tonight while feeding the baby and caught some of “Miracle” on TV, and it almost derailed my entire evening.  (Only a much-longer-than-usual to-do list prevented me from settling down to watch the whole thing.) Olympic movies, of course, are even worse that way–they add patriotism to the already potent everyone-loves-an-underdog theme–but I also loved “Remember the Titans” enough to buy it.  My friend and I–FEMALE friend, mind you–even saw “Glory Road” in the theater (did anyone else get a kick out of the fact that the racist Kentucky coach’s name was Adolph?).

It’s not just the movies, though.  I still get choked up remembering Dan Jansen’s gold medal race, not to mention Kerri Strug’s world-famous vault, and I can’t be the only one.  As much as sports themselves aren’t a passion of mine, I love watching people’s dedication, hard work, and passion achieve them their goals.  I do confess, however, that there are a few classics I haven’t seen (or saw so young I don’t remember them), and one of these days I’m going to remedy that.  “Chariots of Fire” and “Hoosiers” are at the top of my list.  What else should be on it?

I’m really not much for games on my phone, for several reasons.  I have a computer in my kitchen, after all, and I prefer computers to touch screens; by my own choice, my phone is not fancy enough to support more than a few options; I don’t want to have to fight off my kids whenever I’m holding my phone; and I try not to tempt myself to waste more time than I already do.  (This isn’t me being self-righteous, by the way.  This is me knowing my addictive personality.  Long before the Candy Crush period, my hubby downloaded a solitaire program with 92 varieties of the game on it–3 times.  All three times, I had to go to him and ask him to take it off to save me from myself.)

That said, there are times–school pickup lines, for example–when  you need to kill a few minutes, and after reading about a game called “Spelltower,” I asked my hubby to put it on my phone for me.  That one cost $2, I think, but it’s fun–it’s kind of a cross between Boggle and Tetris, except that instead of getting faster to get harder, some of the letters start coming with minimums (as in, this letter must be used to make a word that is at least 4, or 5, or 6 letters long).  More recently, he got into Wordbrain, which only fit on my phone after he removed Trivia Crack.  It’s also Boggle-ish, except that you have to use all the letters each time, and you graduate from 3 by 3s to 4 by 4s, etc.  (I’m on my first level of 4 by 4s, by the way.)  There are hints, and it tells you how many letters long each word in the puzzle is.  It’s fun, it’s not timed (I’m not usually a ‘timed’ fan), and it’s less addicting than Candy Crush.  (Let’s just say that it’s possibly a good thing that Soda Saga, for whatever reason, won’t work on my computer.)

What are your favorite word games?

Today the girlies and I went to the dentist, while my fabulous aunt tended my littles.  The oldest was psyched; her sister, not so much.  “I don’t want to go to the dentist…”  I heard this more than once today, in her tiny little “I’m afraid of new things” voice, but no longer!  “That was fun!  I love the dentist!” was the refrain as we left.  Who knew that a ceiling TV showing Doc McStuffins and a new toothbrush could accomplish so much?

And for the record, while I do have one small cavity (the girlies none–yay!), it’s on the same tooth as my most severe gum recession.  Which means that when my dentist fills the cavity, he can put something on the top of the tooth that will (I hope) make cold drinks enjoyable again.

This is a good, good thing.

Why yes, I DID just finish reading Cary Elwes’s memoir about filming “The Princess Bride.”  How did you guess?

Seriously, though, I’ve been looking forward to reading this one for months…along with half the population of the Salt Lake Valley.  It took forever for it to come in at the library the first time around, and then when I didn’t get to it in three weeks, back it had to go.  (Books are only renewable if there are no holds–or enough available copies to fill the holds.)  In fact, it may have gone back more than once, but I always got it back eventually, and it finally moved up to the top of my ‘what to read next’ list.  And oh, I enjoyed it!  If I’m going to be completely honest, the writing itself wasn’t always my favorite–there’s conversational, and then there’s too many blasted sentence fragments–but ultimately, it didn’t really matter.  Cary Elwes sounds like a lovely person (the phrase ‘thoroughly pleasant, likable chap’ keeps coming to mind), and he obviously loved everyone with whom he worked on “The Princess Bride.”  The behind-the-scenes stories are often hilarious, and the book is peppered with comments by his fellow cast members, Rob Reiner, and a few others involved with the movie.  If you love “The Princess Bride”–if you can remember watching it and quoting it more times than you may admit to now–then you really need to read this one.  It’s a thoroughly enjoyable jaunt down Memory Lane.

I’ve seen a few photo groups and one or two articles lately about bottle feeding, and how it can be a beautiful bonding experience with your baby.  I appreciate this, as I breastfed my first two children and bottle-fed my 3rd and 4th, for a variety of reasons.  I noted one interesting comment, though, from a woman who had also done both and asserted that breastfeeding was so much more something to her.  (I can’t remember what she said exactly, but the impression I got was that it was beautiful, fulfilling, etc. in a way that bottle feeding wasn’t.)  I’ve been holding in the perfect response to that for weeks, but I can’t resist sharing it, so here goes.

If breastfeeding is an activity you enjoy, that is fabulous.  Enjoy it.  I’m OCD enough that I find a certain satisfaction in cleaning that not everyone does.  But if you think bottle feeding your baby is significantly different in terms of your bonding with your baby, then you’re doing it wrong.

(And lest you think I’m attacking the maker of the comment, don’t worry; this is something else entirely.  If you’re not laughing, you probably don’t have firsthand experience with the advice I’m satirizing.)

Once upon a time, when I was about 8, we were visiting my aunt’s family in New Jersey and decided to go to a movie.  When we got to the theater, our first choice–“Three Men and a Baby”–was sold out; my parents looked for another movie at a similar time that was 8-year-old friendly, and came up with a show that fit the criteria, although none of us knew anything about it.  About two hours later, we left the theater somewhat bemused.  What sort of movie was that?  It was funny, it was romantic, it was adventurous, and the dialogue was both witty and a little bit weird. Whatever we had expected, it wasn’t exactly what we got.

The movie was “The Princess Bride.”

Now, of course, it’s a household name–at least among the people I know–but at the time, we’d never heard of it.  (Or Cary Elwes, with his how-the-heck-do-you-pronounce-that? last name.)  We certainly didn’t realize it would become so terribly popular over the years, although its popularity seems eminently deserved.  We just knew that the lines were funny, although the genre was undefinable.  It wasn’t until years later that I read the book, which is possibly even funnier, but it didn’t take nearly that long to appreciate that fact that, solely by accident, we’d witnessed the debut of one of the best cult classics ever.  Who hasn’t quoted–at least once–“My name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die”?  (By the way, I almost died when I realized that Inigo and Archibald Craven from my “Secret Garden” soundtrack are one and the same.  That man is one impressive tenor.)

This really might be my favorite cult classic of all time, come to think of it.  There are others I enjoy, some I actively dislike, and some I’ve never seen.  What are your favorites?

Last night, just before bath-time, my son was sitting on top of one of his sisters–she was on her stomach on the floor–and another one of them rushed by.  He was, apparently, accidentally knocked down, and cried for most of the rest of the evening before finally falling asleep.  (Bath-less, mind you.  I ran it for him and put him in it, and he screamed until he well, did something unpleasant in the water.  Once I cleaned that up, I went to ready the girlies for bed–baby in tow–and Daddy just wiped him and talked him into his clothes and eventually put him down.)  He held his right arm (the one with the intact thumb) against his body, cradling it with his other arm, and just screamed more if we touched it. Thankfully, my hubby’s suspicion was correct; the doctor confirmed a case of ‘nursemaid’s elbow’ this morning and popped it back into place.  It still hurt overnight, however, and that was sort of the last straw as far as sleep was concerned.  Here’s how the night went:

12-ish:  I turned out my light and was adjusting my pillow when the boy started to cry.  He was itching at his feet and ankles when I went in, so I rubbed copious amounts of his good lotion all over where he was itching and went back to bed.

12:20-ish:  My oldest came in.  She’s been complaining of “tickly” or “tingly” toes of late, but last night they were much worse, and the balls of her feet were itchy as well.  I put lotion onto the offending areas and carried her–no mean feat–downstairs to bed to try and help the lotion stay on her feet and do the job.

1-ish:  My oldest still couldn’t fall asleep.  She snuggled in between my hubby and me for a while before going back to bed to try again.  (This is the first time it’s bothered her more than once in a night.)

2-ish:  She still couldn’t fall asleep, she said.  This time she snuggled on my side, just with me, before heading back down.

3:45-ish:  The boy was crying and itching at his feet again.  He was too upset to try a second bath attempt, but not having it meant no lotion rubbed in right afterward, and even with Benadryl instead of Aller-Tec the itching was awful.  (He’s been up at 4 two other nights this week, itching his poor feet.)  More good lotion.  (The $6-$7 per 8 oz tube kind.)

4-ish:  Crying baby.  Whether her brother woke her up or she did it on her own, she certainly wasn’t going back to sleep again.  I gave her three ounces and tried putting her down–no dice.

Slightly later but stil 4-ish:  I was giving the baby two more ounces when my oldest came back up.  She read until the baby was settled and then I snuggled with her and talked about the coming day.  She didn’t want to miss the class auction, where she got to spend the tokens she’s been earning, OR the school talent show, so I told her that as long as she could get up in the morning and be cheerful, she could go to school.  We ended up putting hydrocortisone on her toes (“itchy cream” at our house), which she said helped.  Back to bed for her.

5-something: The boy came in saying he wanted to sleep with us.  I NEVER allow this, but he’d been awake and crying and miserable too many times for it to seem worth trying to put him back down.  His arm was obviously hurting, even though I’d slipped him another syringe of Ibuprofen at 4-something, so I pulled him into bed with us, where he did actually fall back asleep.  (I’m really hoping this doesn’t come back to bite me, because I NEVER DO THIS.)

6-something:  My hubby’s alarm starts to go off.  I was only dosing, anyway.

7-ish:  My hubby goes down to get my oldest, who despite her interrupted night was already awake and reading.  I grabbed a few more minutes to doze, but made it out of bed around 7:35.

The update?  The boy’s arm seems to be all better, and the doctor called in some prescription eczema cream.  I didn’t want to pull my oldest out of school, but since her feet were bugging her at bedtime tonight, I’m wondering if it’s an infection of some sort.  A doctor’s appointment is probably going to happen tomorrow–but AFTER school.

At least it’s early day.

In the meantime, I still need to practice the piano and shower, but my bed has rarely beckoned so invitingly.  Goodnight all!

1)I’ve always known that “just needing a couple of things” at Costco only works in theory; I realized today that having a long Costco list is just a much more expensive version of that principle.  $291 later…

2)Middle #1 has been struggling this week, and I’ve assumed that she’s at loose ends–kindergarten has ended, except for assessments, but her older sister is still in school until Friday.  Today I finally took her on my lap and noted that she’d been having a hard time…did she miss kindergarten?

My poor girlie cried.  Apparently she really, REALLY misses kindergarten.

3)True friendship is eating your lunch standing up so that you can help your friend separate a Costco bag of mozzarella into Zip-Loc bags…and thereby fit all of the rest of her Costco purchases into her ridiculously packed fridge.

4)I need to be more on the ball about teeth, apparently.  My oldest pulled one of her loose teeth out herself at school today, bringing it home in a credit-card-sized manila envelope.

5)The only difference between Costco and the Target Dollar Spot is the price range.  See #1.

When my oldest and I finished up the final sequel to Sarah, Plain and Tall, I was double-checking that it was the final when I came across a description of Cassie Binegar, another of MacLachlan’s books.  Noting that it took place in a house by the ocean easily sold me–I love Patricia MacLachlan, after all–and so I put it on hold at the library, checked it out when it came in, and finally got around to it last week.

Oddly enough, I found that I didn’t love it quite as much as I was expecting, but I think reading it in such small increments is responsible for some of that.  After all, I loved Cassie’s friend Margaret Mary, I loved her growth over the course of the story, and the mental picture the book created for me was stunning.  Even allowing for the reading difficulty, however, I don’t think it’s her best work.  (Which is fine, by the way.  Her best work is very, very stiff competition.)  Her books are generally short, but this one suffered from the shortness in a way that the others I’ve read don’t seem to.  I wanted to know a little more, especially about the relatives, and I wanted to see a bit more interaction between Cassie and her family. (Although to be fair, part of the point is that she feels like an outsider, not because she is unloved, but because she is so different in personality.)  Perhaps what I mean is that I quite enjoyed what was there, but I missed a bit of what wasn’t.  It’s still MacLachlan, though, which means that it’s still worth reading.  Cassie comes to terms with her grandfather’s death and the reality of what her family is (informal and loving) and is not (orderly and quiet), and her resulting ability to understand other perspectives is one that we all hope our children gain.

The curious part came after I finished it.  It’s due this week, along with another older title by an acclaimed author (Lois Lowry, this time), and while I finished the one I didn’t get the chance to read the other.  I’ve been noticing for a week or more that both titles were in a different font and color than the others on the ‘Item Out’ list on my library account; it took until last night for me to realize the significance of this.  I clicked on the Lowry title, intending to put it on hold again, and nothing happened.  Hmmm, that’s odd, I thought.  I did a title search; the title wasn’t there.

At all.

Okay, that’s WEIRD, I thought.  I looked up Cassie Binegar, since it was the only other title on the list in black, and then it dawned on me.  Duh. Blue means it’s a LINK to something; black means it’s NOT.  Which now makes sense, given that these books that I checked out of the library, diligently renewed three times, and still have in my possession, do not appear to exist anywhere in the Salt Lake County library system except on my ‘Items Out’ list.  This begs a plethora of questions.  Since I want to read the Lowry, what do I do?  I can’t put it on hold if the library is pretending that it doesn’t exist.  Will they–CAN they–fine me for an overdue book that doesn’t exist, except on my account?  Will they just renew it once more by phone?  If I try to check it in and then check it back out, what will happen?  Are they removing it from the system?  Did they notice it because I checked it out–am I responsible for its removal?  And really, if they don’t want it, can I have it?  (I would wonder if I’m just overtired and somehow missing it, but my friend looked for it, too.)

Tomorrow I’ll give the library a call and see what’s to be done about it.  For tonight, I’m just thinking–this really is curious.

And by things, I mean EXAMPLES.  I am in no way referring to women as “things.”  I recently noticed this article, you see, and thought–8 Beautifully Feminist Characters You Need in Your Life?  Hmm.  Might as well check that out.  And so on I went down the list, thinking something like this:

Mulan?  Sure!  I haven’t read the 6th century poem, but this says she still went to war to spare her father.  Elizabeth Bennett and Jo March?  I’m a fan.  I haven’t read The Hunger Games, but I saw the movie, and I can see how Katniss could be a role model–protects her younger sister, doesn’t want to kill for gain (although I did read an interesting article disputing the idea that she’s a strong character at all).  Hermione Granger?  Heck yeah!  Scarlett O–WHAT?

Scarlett O’Hara?

I need Scarlett O’Hara in my life?

Here’s the blurb about Scarlett:

“Scarlett was a spoiled and self-centered sixteeen year old, but that all changed as she endured the Civil War. Scarlett is nothing if not a survivor, sometimes at all costs. She single handedly manages to keep the family home when other Georgia families are losing theirs.” [sic]

Wow.

I’m struggling to believe that Susan Swann has actually READ Gone With the Wind.  I admit that my own reading was over two decades ago, but I do remember some salient points.

1)Scarlett O’Hara never stopped being spoiled and self-centered.  She believed herself to love Ashley–and then Rhett–but loving someone requires you to sometimes think of the other person before yourself.  I can’t remember a single instance of her doing that.  WITH ANYONE.

2)Okay, she’s a survivor–dang straight “at all costs.”  She does NOT, however, single-handedly manage to keep the family home.  In order to do it, she needs money, and so she fascinates her sister’s longtime beau into marrying her and giving her the money.  This is supposed to be admirable?  She lies and steals to get what she wants, because the only thing she truly does love, in the course of a 1,034-page book, is Tara.

3)I suppose, if you use the worst possible definition of Feminism, she’s a perfect feminist.  She manipulates men into proposing to her and marries them as means to an end; she gives birth to MULTIPLE children that she ignores, even when the other parent is dead; she makes her choices without regard for anyone else’s wishes, feelings, or just deserts.  I need her in my life?

The rest of the list barely registered with me, honestly; I’ve read Alice in Wonderland, but I don’t remember Alice as being terribly memorable (maybe because the book was all political satire that is no longer relevant in our society), and while I like Eliza Doolittle, it took an exceptional teacher (a male teacher) and a great deal of money to make her reinvention possible.  Mostly, I couldn’t get past Scarlett’s presence on that list. At the risk of alienating any Gone With the Wind lovers among my friends, well–Scarlett is strong, yes.  So are most bullies.  She’s a survivor, yes–because she looks out for herself, not caring who gets trampled along the way.  The only thing she does single-handedly, however, is attract and manipulate men who have the means to help her.  She certainly does that very well.  Let’s just be honest about the kind of friends women who hone that skill usually are to the people around them…which is why she is most definitively NOT a character I need in my life.