Mother’s Day
This is my third mother’s day – fourth if you’re one of those people that count mother’s day when you’re pregnant because you’re a mother from the first heartbeat. I believe in life from the moment of conception, but I wasn’t really thinking of myself as a mother yet. I didn’t really feel like a mother until I was nursing and changing diapers and praying I didn’t screw it up.
Although this blog began as a book review blog, it is still a blog and by definition it is an online diary. Which means it contains not just one of my passions, but all of them. Books, Kung Fu, Cycling, and now, of course, for the last three years – mothering.
Being a mother, for me, has meant that I have found every possible way to make half my previous yearly income from home. I’m not quite making half as my book sales are chronically lean because it’s in the wrong category on Amazon. I’m a little conceited about the beauty of its cover and enticing back jacket blurb and think it would sell like hotcakes if only the right people could find it by browsing.
Of course, being a mother has actually made it possible for me to finish writing a book in the first place.
Being a mother, for me, has meant that my book reviews take me twice as long to write because I used to be able to completely bury myself in a book until I felt like coming up for air. Now, I don’t get to choose when I come up for air – that is usually chosen for me by a precocious three year old who will say things like, “Mommy, I need more juice.” “Mommy, look, it’s echoes, like in the bathroom.” (After drawing a series of parenthesis like lines getting larger across the width of her chalkboard.) “Mommy, I need a peanut butter sandwich.” “Mommy, you be the orange dalek and I’ll be the white one – ‘Exterminate! Exterminate!” (While dancing rubber Daleks across my kitchen table.) “Mommy, I want to learn something. Can we do a lesson?” “Mommy, can you teach me my letters now?” I love my tiny, vocal, human who will assert her needs and remind me to read to her at every turn and not neglect her schooling.
Being a mother, for me, means endless beautiful walks in the woods. Miles and miles of trails, flower picking, foraging, bird-watching, and outdoor story time. It means multiple trips to the park, the lake, the grocery store, bookstores, and libraries. It means art projects, painting, dancing, extra house cleaning just for the fun of letting her sweep and mop knowing I’ll have to do it again. It means demonstrating all of your passions, all your talents, all your dreams, and all your healthy habits to a small person who is watching your every move and gathering every ounce of information she can from it all.
Being a mother has meant seeing this little girl go from this:
To this:
In what can simultaneously be equated to a blink of an eye and the longest three years of my life.
I didn’t think I’d be a mother. But I’m enjoying it immensely.
Earth Day Reading With Little People
The Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – selected by The Kiddo
Holiday reading with preschoolers can actually be quite fun. Although most people are doing a lot of Easter books, we’ve spent our focus on nature, enjoying spring, and covering the catechism this week. Easter bunnies and egg hunting a thing on hold for now.
Our daily go to during any season tends to be Cat in the Hat Learning Library
Life Cycles
Because it’s Earth Day season (the actual day is April 22nd, which falls on a Tuesday this year), we’ve been reading up on conservation and organic gardening. Of course, that also means that I’m letting my three year old water my tomatoes and walk in my garden. It’s a learning experience for her and a letting go experience for me.
That’s why the woods being by the house is best for us. It’s where I can really let her go and frolic and be herself.
When we get to the open fields she gets to pick as many flowers as she wants.
Whether you want to make it part of your normal routine or you’re just celebrating Earth Day, check out kiddo’s favorite books and find a good outdoor park this weekend. The fresh air and sunshine is amazing.
Freelance Writing
I wish this blog was a post about me receiving one of those… see Daphne, above, a royal portable from 1930. Green, no less.
It’s not.
But it is pretty exciting.
I’m pursuing supplementing my income with freelance writing jobs. So far, I have been hired on by Money-Fax.com and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. Money-Fax has me writing about Kid & Family Budgeting, which is pretty perfect because I’m a homeschool mom chronically on an author budget. (That’s code for mommy who lives off nothing.)
Here are links to my published articles, so far:
The Economics of Cloth Diapers
How to Entertain Your Child for Free This Summer
How Much Does it Really Cost to Homeschool
The more traffic my articles get, the more people will want to have me write them – naturally. So, please, if you have someone in your life any of these articles would interest, share them.
There are more to come. Keep checking Money-Fax.com for budget friendly pets and ways to celebrate Easter. Browse through their site for other helpful articles as well. They are an education service geared toward helping the public learn to improve the state of their finances.
Patricia & Max
I’ve had Patricia Von Pleasantsquirrel
Anyway, we read it tonight, and I wanted to be sure I shared this with the world.
Patricia Von Pleasantsquirrel is a snotty little girl that thinks she’s supposed to be queen of everything. Her mother won’t let her stay up past midnight, her dad won’t let her eat cake before dinner, her baby brother has the audacity to act like a baby instead of be her servant, and her dog has the bigger audacity to be a dog instead of being a great white stallion. She is one who suffers from the great illness of entitlement, when she hasn’t done a darn thing to earn any titles.
In front of my moatless cottage before it broke in half.
“Patricia was certain that a one-level, three-bedroom, moatless cottage was no place for royalty.”
Part of me wants to say, “No kidding, sister.” The other part of me says, “Hey! I love this one-level, three-bedroom, moatless cottage that’s literally falling apart at the seams…” Oh, we’re not actually talking about MY house…
So then, in protest to a life that is not exactly what she’s dreamed, Patricia puts on her frilliest dress, takes out all her books, and settles on one…
If you haven’t felt the familiar tingle of a child who has “made mischief of one kind and another,” we can spell it out for you – as Proimos does. Patricia decides to read Where the Wild Things Are
This is the point in the book when I gently close it and actually pick up the Caldecott winning children’s book by Maurice Sendak. This is where we jump into Max’s adventure… we roar with beast… we gnash our terrible teeth… and come back home to settle into Patricia’s story.
Where Patricia thinks:
“If a silly boy with no social graces could be made king with no effort at all, then imagine how easy it would be for me to find my princessdom.”
I won’t give away her whole story. I won’t riddle this review with spoilers. But I will say, my favorite parts include two jelly beans named Edith Wharton and Louisa May Alcott as well as a hippo named Elvis.
The only thing that could make this reading experience more complete would be if I finally bought a copy of The Giving Tree
Housman for Kids
A Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
Title: A Shropshire Lad
Author: A. E. Housman
Illustrator: Charles Mozley
Genre: Poetry
In February I stumbled across A.E. Housman. Between the state of my soul, the weather, and Housman’s poetry, I found a little hub of safety. In the words of my best friend, “Where has he been all our lives?”
Apparently everywhere.
Even in kid’s books, of all places.
The book I found is a $10 hardback from Good Books in the Woods. It’s a hardback. It was printed in 1968, and the style of binding, as well as the illustrations, reflect that. To me, it’s the perfect edition to have floating around the house for your kiddo to discover and flip through as early readers. Same classic poetry with a much different kid friendly feel.
Bouquet of Color
Revisiting…
Title: I Love Dirt!
(52 Activities to help you and your kids discover the wonders of nature)
Today, we went for a much needed walk in the woods. When the weather is nice, we’re out there five days a week. When the weather is too hot to be nice, we’re out there four days a week. When the weather is obnoxiously freezing cold, wet, and completely unnatural to a born and bred Texan, we hide indoors and rock back and forth holding our hot coffee and teas. Well, not quite, but close. We actually sit by the window and watch the birds eat bits of things we’ve left in the yard, name the squirrels that live in the trees out back, and read stories by the fire burning in the fireplace.
Today, the sun was out for a bit. It wasn’t quite so cold. We needed the woods and we needed it bad. There was cheering involved.
So, we loaded up our trustee going out bag and went for a trek. Tucked inside was our copy of I Love Dirt and as soon as we hit the trails we read from chapter two: Bouquet of Color.
Bouquet of Color is an exercise in finding flowers and identifying how many colors we can see. It’s a purely natural I Spy game.
We discovered more flowers we would call purple than I would have supposed. Lots of purple field pansies, baby blue eyes (that look more purple than blue), and even some butterfly peas. We saw a lot of pointed phlox, but that is categorically considered a ‘red’ wildflower… so maybe we’re a little colorblind because they looked pinkish purple to us.
Of course, there was a lot of yellow in the form of dandelions, but not as many as I would have guessed. We found a lot of dewberry patches sporting their telling white blooms, and took note of where they were so we could come forage berries come summer. Yet, tt seemed Kiddo was still shouting “I see purple!” more than any other phrase.
We were pretty excited about the blossoms on this tree. See what they look like up close. Anyone know what it is?
Click this photo to find out…
Sometimes on the trail we get distracted from whatever task is at hand and just enjoy ourselves. Here she said, “I want to put the sun in my mouth!” I couldn’t resist snapping that picture.
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
This is an annual event at most Half Price Books stores. If you missed it this year, keep your eyes peeled for signage in your favorite store next year.
Oh The Places You’ll Go!
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
There was also had a bowl of colored Gold Fish at the table with a pretty nifty sign of the book cover. Each kid got a party bag with an HPB cup inside so they could scoop goldfish from the bowl.
My kiddo with The Cat in the Hat (Kevin Pickle)
I think we were just as excited as the kids to take a picture with a real, live Cat in the Hat.
I got the idea for Truffula Tree Cupcakes on Pinterest. It’s chocolate cupcake mix, icing dyed green with food coloring, I added dark green sprinkles for fun, and cotton candy on a kebob stick. Do the cotton candy last minute, I tried to do it too soon and the humidity of Houston caused the cotton candy to crystallize and shrink. We had to buy a second batch of cotton candy and redo it right before the party.
The Big Book for Peace
A Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
This picture is from BookMine – the one I took at GBITW didn’t take.
Title: The Big Book for Peace
This is where I normally list the authors and illustrators of a book… there were so many involved with The Big Book for Peace that I opted to take a picture of the title page instead:
I’ve been eying this for awhile now. It’s been perched on display in the kid’s section at Good Books in the Woods for months now. Why has no one picked it up? Why is no one buying this. It’s in a nice slip cover, it’s been taken care of. There’s some slight water damage that – as a book collector – I see no problem with, it’s ever so slight and does not take away from the magic of the book. It’s a nice, clean copy. It’s only $12.
I know why I haven’t purchased it – I’m completely overloaded with books AND have NO money.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to read it until someone else does decide to take this treasure home.
So today, I sat down with the kiddo, in a bookstore, in another person’s home – and my home away from home – and read her the first story in the book.
Filled with castles and kings as any good Lloyd Alexander story should be, The Two Brothers follows a tale of two men who split the kingdom their father left them in half. From the rubble of the fortress they grew up in, they build two separate castles. What begins as a sweet story between the kindest brothers ever evolves into a competition of who can build the better kingdom, each man filled with greed and a medieval ‘keeping up with the Jonses’ mentality.
So many times, the reader can see where each brother makes an unwise choice, continuing the bitterness. Until we arrive at this lovely illustration, which my camera has done little justice:
This story was kiddo approved (she’s three, but it is a nice tale for any age). I look forward to the next chapter of The Big Book of Peace.
Moonhorse
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
Title: Moonhorse
Author: Mary Pope Osborne
Illustrator: S.M. Sealig
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
I saw this and couldn’t pass it up. Mary Pope Osborne invades my house again! I love her.
I enjoy her complete ability to offer facts and history and in this case astronomy in the form of fiction. To pique a child’s interest in a nonfiction topic with a bit of fantastical fairy tale.
I’m trying to get more detailed and specific when I offer these reviews of my child’s favorite books, but she doesn’t always seem to understand the questions. Or perhaps, I don’t understand the beautiful simplicity of her answers.
Me: “Did you like this book?”
Kiddo: “Yes!”
Me: “What did you like about it?”
Kiddo: “The white!”
Me: “Because the horse is white?”
Kiddo: “With the red.”
The little girl in the illustration is wearing a red dress. I think bits of the story were lost on my three year old today, she was drawing her own pictures and sucking down a cup of milk. I think ultimately, what she may have been trying to tell me, in her distracted three year old way, is that she liked the illustrations and the use of muted color. But I don’t want to put words in her mouth.
If you’re building an astronomy unit study for anyone under ten, this is a nice bedtime story to add to your week. Personally, I wish the poetry of the tale was rhymed more, but I have a natural inclination to the sing-songy way of things.
I Love Dirt!
Title: I Love Dirt!
Author: Jennifer Ward
Foreword: Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
Illustratator: Susie Ghahremani
I popped in at Half Price Books after a long season off from scheduling book signings. Tucked low in my employee cube was a book – this book – with a post it note on it from my boss.
“Andi – I thought you might like because of the woods you live by!”
I did like it, immediately. And bought it with my Christmas money.
The book starts with a riveting foreword about the nature of nature in the United States and how much we have strayed from the outdoors. Interestingly enough, the more we stray from outdoor life, the more children struggle with obesity, ADD and ADHD, as well as depression.
And the more kids spend outdoors?
“A 2005 study by the California Department of Education found that students in schools with nature immersion programs performed 27 percent better in science testing than kids in traditional class settings. Similarly, children who attended outdoor classrooms showed substantially improved test scores, particularly in science. Such research consistently confirms what our great-grandparents instinctively knew to be true, and what we know in our bones and nerves to be right: free-play in natural settings is good for a child’s mental and physical health. The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees, stating in 2007 that free and unstructured play is healthy and essential for children.”
I’m in love with this book. I already do a lot of nature activities with my child – foraging for starters. We play outside at the public park, we walk nature trails, we run, we jump, do cartwheels in the grass, hunt insects and lizards, sword fight with sticks, and sing our ABCs at the tops of our lungs by the creek. As Ward states in her introduction, “There is nothing more joyful and inspiring to watch than children discovering the world around them.”
All of the activities in this book are pretty much cost free. The only one I found that requires any kind of purchase is the bird feeding one, and that’s only if you want to do it big and don’t have spare groceries in your house. The activities are simple, like sprinkling orange peels in your yard or covering pine cones with peanut butter and bird seed to bird watch from inside when it is too cold to be outside.
The book is broken up seasonally, so you can hop in and do something no matter when you pick up the book. Each activity has a prompt or a concept to get your child thinking about the activity and world itself.
Anakalian Whims 