Girl Detective

or, Why I Shouldn’t Ask for Books Before I Read Them. Drake’s third birthday was last weekend. I told his grandparents that he would enjoy the new Olivia book by Ian Falconer and the new Lilly book by Kevin Henkes. I thought these were sure things. In one way, they were. Drake loves them both. I, however, only love Lilly’s Big Day.

Don’t get me wrong. Olivia Forms a Band has many of the elements that make our previous favorites, Olivia and Olivia Saves the Circus, so wonderful: the pencil drawings, the imaginative inclusion of real images, the humor, the spare use of color. But this time I found some of the photorealism a little creepy when Olivia puts on lipstick and sports a coquettish smile full of teeth. Of course, Drake loves these pages and wants to linger over them. Also, I didn’t enjoy the pages that didn’t move the story forward (the first two about red socks and the lipstick pages) and I found the ending predictable. This is a book I’m happy to own, but I would be just as happy to return it to the library, as we did with Olivia’s third adventure, Olivia and the Missing Toy.

Lilly’s Big Day, though, made me laugh. I don’t enjoy all of the Henkes mouse books. I think Lilly is too mean in Julius, Baby of the World, and I was appalled by Wendell’s behavior in A Weekend with Wendell. Lilly’s Big Day, though, reminded me pleasantly of my favorite, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. It has a finely balanced story, with some nice in-jokes for the adult reader. Lilly’s teacher Mr. Slinger is getting married. She wants to be a flower girl, but he’s already asked his niece. Lilly is spirited and charming, and the ending was not predictable. While the book isn’t preachy, Lilly, unlike Olivia, learns something about herself by the end.

I am reminded yet again that the library, not the bookstore, is where I should browse for books.

Did you know if you kill a centipede, and some of the legs fall off from the body, they keep wriggling for a LONG time? This is especially creepy if there’s more than one pile of them. Drake was with me, so I had to be all “brave mommy killing the bug” but I was shuddering inside.

Drake had his third birthday over the weekend. In honor of the occasion, I made Boston Cream Cupcakes, which I’ve been dying to try since I saw the picture in the June/July issue of Cook’s Country. They were time intensive, but not difficult, and worth the effort for a special occasion.

Boston Cream Cupcakes
from Cook’s Country 6/2006

Bake the cupcakes in a greased and floured muffin tin rather than paper cupcake liners so the chocolate glaze can run down the sides of the cooled cakes.

Makes 12

Pastry Cream
1 1/3 cups heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
Pinch table salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch plus 1 additional teaspoon
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter , cut into 2 pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cupcakes
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour , plus additional for dusting muffin tin
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup sugar
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened but still cool, cut into 12 pieces
3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup light corn syrup
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate , chopped
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. For the pastry cream: Heat cream in medium saucepan over medium heat until simmering, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks, sugar, and salt together in medium bowl. Add cornstarch and whisk until mixture is pale yellow and thick, about 15 seconds.

2. When cream reaches full simmer, slowly whisk it into yolk mixture. Return mixture to saucepan and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until thick and glossy, about 1 1/2 minutes. Off heat, whisk in butter and vanilla. Transfer pastry cream to small bowl, press plastic wrap directly on surface, and refrigerate until cold and set, at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.

3. For the cupcakes: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray, flour generously, and tap pan to remove excess flour.

4. With electric mixer on low speed, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in large bowl. Add butter, one piece at a time, and combine until mixture resembles coarse sand. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined. Add milk and vanilla, increase speed to medium, and mix until light and fluffy and no lumps remain, about 3 minutes.

5. Fill muffin cups three-quarters full (do not overfill). Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cupcake comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool cupcakes in pan 5 minutes, then transfer them to rack to cool completely.

6. For the glaze: Cook cream, corn syrup, chocolate, and vanilla in small saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Set glaze aside to cool and thicken for 30 minutes.

7. Prepare and fill cupcakes as shown in photos 1 through 4. Refrigerate until just set, about 10 minutes. (Cupcakes can be refrigerated for up to 2 days; bring to room temperature before serving.)

STEP BY STEP: How to Make Boston Cream Cupcakes

1. Insert the tip of a small knife at a 45-degree angle about 1/8 inch from the edge of the cupcake and cut all the way around, removing a cone of cake.
2. Cut away all but the top 1/4 inch of the cone, leaving only a small disk of cake.
3. Fill the cupcake with 2 tablespoons pastry cream and top with the disk of cake.
4. Set the filled cupcakes on a wire rack set over parchment paper. Spoon 2 tablespoons of glaze over each cupcake, allowing it to drip down the sides.

I took Drake and Guppy in for their checkups last week, and left with a long list of things that I should be doing, or doing differently or more often. Guppy hadn’t gained weight since his last appointment, so I should start him on solids. Drake doesn’t listen and talks back, so I should read a book. Guppy needs vitamins. I shouldn’t try to bargain with Drake to eat. Guppy isn’t sitting up. Drake should have access to craft materials like paints and crayons.

Of course, there’s a flip side to each of these, as I explained to our doctor. Guppy hasn’t gained weight because he’s sleeping through the night, so he’s eating less frequently. Drake doesn’t listen and talks back, and my reading a book probably isn’t going to change his personality, or the fact that he’s three. Guppy’s vitamins aren’t carried at Target, so they require a special trip, plus they stain and are fascinating to Drake, who runs off with the bottle and its non-child-proof cap. I know I should just put healthful food in front of Drake and let him be, but sometimes his attention wanders, and he needs to be reminded about the food. Guppy isn’t sitting up because that requires fairly constant supervision, which is tough for me to guarantee, with Drake’s short attention span. And finally, we do have crayons and colored pencils, but I put them out of reach because Drake just peels the paper off the former (I think he thinks they’re like bananas) and snaps the tips off the latter.

Since both my boys are awesome (I won’t bore you with the details. Anyway, aren’t my incompetencies more interesting than any bragging I could do?), there’s no way I can be as incompetent a mother as I feel like I am. I think receiving the advice for both boys at once made it feel more overwhelming. Perspective will return sometime soon.

My son Drake is nearly 3 years old, my baby Guppy is 6 months old. Much of my day is spent caring for them in very basic ways–making sure they’re dressed, fed, and safe. While this often is challenging, it also weights very heavily toward the mundane, which is one reason I set book and movie goals for myself. I don’t want my brain to shrivel up and fall out of my ear.

There are, however, compensating joys. Not as frequent as the diapers, tantrums, et. al. But also of a different nature, so that I’m not tempted to tally and compare them. The other day I was trying to get us out the door, and was running late as usual. I was trying to get myself ready, while Guppy’s cries escalated, when Drake poked his head in the bathroom and asked me to read him Frederick. “I can’t right now, honey,” I said, my voice high and frantic. “Why don’t you read it to Guppy. He sounds sad. That would be a big help.” I never expected it to work. But Drake plopped down in the hall, opened Frederick, and started to “read” aloud. Agape, I stopped getting ready, and peered into the hall. Guppy had stopped crying and was looking avidly at Drake, who I discovered had memorized several pages of the not text-light book. He went on for a few pages, then closed the book and said to Guppy, “We’ll stop there for now.”

Then Guppy started to cry again, and I was still not ready, because I’d been staring at him in joy and wonder. I told him he’d done a good job, and thanked him for being a good brother. And we eventually got out the door.

A long time ago, I fretted over Drake’s pronoun confusion. He got you and I mixed up, and forget about he and she; they’re still all over the place. Recently, Drake has begun narrating his life, eschewing pronouns, but still in third person. For example, in the bath he cried, “Stop washing me, yelled my mom!” Running around the house: “I’m chasing, shouted my dad!”

Odd, but amusing.

I think Drake and Guppy require re-entry each week back to our routine after the weekend, thus I find it hard to write on Mondays. So until I get a fortuitous naptime, here are links to letters I wrote to the author at Mental Multivitamin, one on housework (among other things), the other on Caitlyn Flanagan’s and Linda Hirshman’s books, showing that I haven’t really opted out of commenting on the Mommy Wars, I just don’t necessarily do it here.

I think there’s a tendency in childcare books and in advice of extremes. One camp says babies are evil geniuses, adept at manipulating their caring, sleep-deprived parents. The other says babies are like little buddhas, who know exactly what they need, if only their parents are attuned enough to divine it. The reality, of course, is much more murky and middle ground. It also changes as babies get older, and can learn cause and effect.

Our first parenting book was the Dr. Sears Baby Book. Initially, I thought it was great. I aspired to be an attachment parent. I had not, however, consulted Drake about this. Drake did not like the sling. Drake did not like to be held. And Drake would not, could not, sleep. I consulted the Sears Baby Book, where it said disparaging things about sleep training, and that it set children up for unhealthy dependencies later in life. It was not what I needed to hear at the end of my rope. Next, I consulted The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. It also disparaged the so-called sleep-training books as cruel. I read it, I tried its recommendations, but Drake’s sleep did not improve. Finally, I took the advice of our pediatrician, and I purchased the book of the sleep trainer the other books reviled: Dr. Ferber. I read the book, and was shocked at how reasonable it was. I’d expected some baby-ignoring devil based on what I’d read in Pantley and Sears. My husband and I followed the advice in the Ferber book, and finally Drake’s sleep improved. He liked to go to bed, and he slept well once there.

It was the Ferber book I opened when Guppy began to wake more often, at about four months. I supplemented it with a book by Jodi Mindell, billed elsewhere as a “kinder, gentler Ferber” though I found it so nearly the same I’m surprised at the lack of attribution. This time, I tried to approach it more like sleep learning than sleep training. We checked on Guppy at lengthening intervals. I decreased the duration of night feedings by a minute a night. I stopped nursing him right before bed and directly after waking to differentiate those events. Gradually, Guppy learned not only to fall asleep by himself, but that waking did not mean nursing. Within days, he was sleeping longer and waking less. Guppy did cry more for a time, which set the rest of us on edge. Faced with little sleep and much crying, it was often difficult to determine the best thing to do. But now we are all four doing much better than we were a month ago.

Drake, at nearly three, talks a lot. He lisps over his Ls and Ss, but for all that I agonized over his late start talking, he’s pretty clear now. One word, though, remains charmingly babyish. The hot weather has spurred me to keep the blender out for frequent smoothies. Drake just can’t get his palate around the word, so he pronounces it “foozie”. I know it will change eventually, just like cats went from being “beows” to “meows” to “cats”. So I don’t correct him; I’m going to enjoy listening to him say “foozie” as long as it lasts.

I’m likely to hit my minimum yearly book and movie goals of fifty, perhaps for books even by the end of August. After we had our first son, Drake, I found I was reading less often, and seeing movies hardly at all. Both reading and movies felt too important to become casualties (even temporarily) of parenthood, so last year and this I set movie and book challenges, with a hope that, at minimum, I’d be reading one book and seeing one movie a week. These challenges are reminders to myself (and perhaps to readers) that there IS time to read and to see movies. I make time for these things by not doing other things, like housecleaning and yard work, or doing them less often. Mental Multivitamin re-posted this entry on how she makes time to read/write/live/learn. Her post is a good reminder: time is limited and distractions many. My challenges help me focus on my priorities. My summer reading challenge has helped me focus on the reading list I set, rather than haring off whenever something new catches my eye, or comes in at the library. I’ve still departed from the list, but much less frequently, and with more deliberation, than I would if I had not set a reading list.

As a recovering bookstore junkie, I greatly appreciate both the selection and reserve system at my local library. A recent trip turned up interesting results. Drake enjoyed all three books, but I did not. I think the true mark of a book’s success is if I like to read it, and Drake’s likes to hear it, and we both like to look at it. Since he often insists on hearing books dozens of times, books weak in story or art get very annoying, very fast. Borrowing from the library, rather than buying, allows us the luxury of test driving these books at home, to see which books we both enjoy.

Good: Bailey Goes Camping by Kevin Henkes Some Henkes books are particular favorites: Kitten’s First Full Moon, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, Sheila Rae the Brave, and Chester’s Way. Some I have actively disliked (Julius, Baby of the World, and A Weekend with Wendell). Others I found only OK (Chrysanthemum and Wemberley Worried). Bailey Goes Camping falls into this last category. The blurbs on the back call it “cozy” and “comfortable”. I found it boring. Bailey’s older brother and sister go camping. He wants to go but is too young, so his mom helps him do camping things at home. The story is simple, the art is deliberately old-fashioned, but I found neither particularly memorable.

Better: Too Big by Claire Masurel, art by Hanako Wakiyama. I’d liked the art from The Best Pet of All (see following) so I decided to give this a try. Charlie is small and brings home a big toy named Tex. No one wants him to take Tex anywhere because of his size, but when Charlie has to go to the doctor, Tex is loyal and ready. I had a few problems with this book. First, I think Tex’s size is supposed to be a contrast with Charlie’s smallness, typical of a kid, but that’s a subtle inference for a child. Second, when Charlie needs to go to the doctor, all his regularly sized toy friends hide. The illustration for this was good, since a child can find them, but why they hide is unclear. Are they afraid of the doctor, and the author didn’t want to make this explicit? Is it so that Charlie finally takes Tex? Without explanation, it seems cruel and arbitrary that his friends hide from him. Finally, while I liked the retro look of the art, the dad had red hair (like Charlie) on several pages, but black hair on another. I found this lack of continuity confusing. Drake, though, liked the book just fine.

Best: The Best Pet of All by David LaRochelle, art by Hanako Wakiyama. We have checked this book out before, and I was reminded that it is a great blend of story and art. A little boy wants a dog; his mother says no. The boy counters that he’d like a dragon. The mom OKs that, little expecting the boy to bring home a dragon. Both are understandably upset with the dragon’s bad manners. The end is charming and funny, and turns on understanding something from the illustration, not just the text. While my husband jokes that he finds the mom “uncomfortably hot” for a storybook, the art is retro yet kid-accessible. While all three books had very good reviews at Amazon, this is the one book of the three that I liked as well as Drake did, and it’s the one book that I will consider adding to our permanent library, though I also like the idea of having old favorites at our public library that we check out and re-read.

Yesterday I was about to wake toddler Drake from his nap. (Within the past year, I’ve had to modify my “never wake the child” rule, because if he napped late, then he stayed up late, so it became a choice between shortening the nap, or pushing back the bedtime.) On the monitor, I heard movement and thought, “He’s waking himself. Perfect timing.” Then I heard a giant thump and a loud wail. With baby Guppy in my arms, I raced up the steps and into his room, where he was getting off the floor next to his bed, blood dripping from his face. “Nosebleed,” I thought. “I can handle this.” I tried to hug him, he rebuffed me, so I went to the hall to get a towel, choosing a dark red one, so he wouldn’t be so alarmed by the blood. I returned, and was trying to calm him and wipe up a bit, when he let out another loud wail, displaying a mouthful of blood. Since he wouldn’t let me near him, and I now wanted help, I put Guppy in his crib, then called my neighbor who said she could be right over. Guppy, of course, had also begun to wail by this point. The neighbor arrived and tended to Guppy, who was happy as long as he was being held. I managed to coax Drake into my arms finally. He said his nose hurt, but not his tongue, so we figured that the blood in the mouth was backwash from the nose. He eventually stopped crying, then let me put him down with a few whimpers here and there. We knew he was OK when he asked me to play cars with him.

I’d been thinking that it would probably be OK to get rid of the monitor in Drake’s room now that he’s almost three, since having one for each boy is cumbersome. He’s a good sleeper and has been in his bed for seven months. But I was glad for the monitor yesterday, since it let me respond to him quickly. The monitor stays, for now.

Toddler will not nap
Five month baby on the move?!
Oh my goddess, help.

The toddler did eventually nap, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing and posting this today.

For more motherhood haikus, visit Haiku of the Day, the site of Kari Anne Roy, author of Haiku Mama. The friend who gave me the book noted, and I agree, that it’s funnier now that I have more than one kid. I’m not sure why; perhaps because illusion and romance have worn off, and a sense of humor has become one of the best survival tools.

We are trying to “teach” five-month-old Guppy to fall asleep on his own. He did this very well for his first four plus months, and then he learned to roll over. We’d put him in bed on his back, he’d roll over to his tummy, and scream. We’d flip him back, he’d roll over and scream. Lather, rinse, repeat. He was and has been adamant about not learning to roll from his tummy to his back, though that is supposedly (according to the oft-cursed, oft-wrong baby books) easier and learned earlier. So we had a choice–either we keep up the flip-n-scream till he finally fell asleep before he could flip over, or we encourage him to sleep on his tummy, since he’s no longer a newborn and the SIDS risk is lower. The problem with the former option was that even when we did this–because we tried–when he woke in the night, he’d automatically roll to his tummy, so we’d have to go through the flip-n-scream multiple times in a night. After a few nights of that, we decided that we’d all be happier if he learned to sleep on his tummy, with the hope that he’ll eventually learn to roll the other way. But this option is still a lesser of evils, and there’s has been much more crying at nap and bedtime, which puts us all on edge.

I strive to post five times a week, but this week I am feeling thwarted, though perhaps by my own hand. Yesterday we had a friend of Drake’s over for a playdate, while I attempted to do six loads of laundry, mop the kitchen floor, make some progress reading Jane Eyre, and resurrect–and more importantly, de-crustify–the high chair now that Guppy is on the verge of so-called solid foods. Unsurprisingly, I was unable to read or write online, especially since Guppy’s idea of when to wake from his nap differed greatly from mine.

I’m back after a trip to my hometown for my 20th high school reunion. I flew out with both Guppy (4+ months) and Drake (nearly 3 years) by myself, then my husband G. Grod flew in for the weekend, and we four flew back together. Ironically, the flight out was tough, and the return was a breeze.

Outbound, we got permission for G. Grod to accompany us to the gate; we arrived just in time to board early. I asked the high-school-aged girl sitting behind me to hold Guppy while I installed Drake’s car seat, then I strapped Drake in and put Guppy in the Maya Wrap sling, where he proceeded to scream for quite some time, perhaps because we sat for 45 sweaty minutes past takeoff time without air. Everyone around me was carefully looking everywhere but at us. The man on the other side of me asked if the girl behind me was my daughter (OK, while she technically COULD be my daughter, and some of my classmates have kids her age, I still did not appreciate the confirmation that I look my age.), perhaps looking to switch out of our row. I said she was a stranger who helped me. He expressed surprise, and I wondered to myself what kind of person would NOT volunteer to help a mom traveling with 2 kids and needing an extra hand? Drake was mostly good, but kept insisting that he wanted another lollipop, which I had trouble extracting from my bag while also trying to juggle Guppy, whose screams were not only disturbing in general, but also because they were so uncharacteristic. He is normally a placid little buddha.

My stash of Dum-Dum lollipops, a new Matchbox toy, the Consumer Reports annual auto issue, and several paperback books ensured that Drake continued to be mostly good for the 2-hour flight. The monkey backpack/leash worked great once we got off the plane. As usual, we received lots of admiring looks and comments on the wheels for Drake’s car seat.

Drake missed his nap, then had a nuclear meltdown at bedtime, which I thought was due to the nap, but had to reasses when he woke an hour later, having spiked a high fever. Boy, did I feel competent for having bought and packed children’s Tylenol. Drake’s fever rose as high as 104 over the next few days, then passed. Guppy continued to fuss and sleep badly throughout our trip, though he did also occasionally show his cute, smiley side in public and at my reunion events. And if compliments are to be believed, then I don’t look as if I haven’t slept well since I got pregnant with Guppy, so I suppose that’s something.

Once home, I diagnosed Guppy with reflux from trying to lengthen the intervals between feedings, since every 2 hours during the day is exhausting to me, and both my pediatrician and my pediatric-trained dad told me I was feeding him more often than necessary. Now I’m back to feeding him more frequently, and hope that brings back a long interval at night, once the irritation dies down. Last night, though, I was up at 11, 2, 4, and 6. Guess he showed them. And me.

Yesterday I packed both boys into the car and took Drake to get a haircut. Then we drove to the mall so I could buy a sun hat for Guppy. Then we drove to the adjacent Super Target to do our household shopping. Then we went home for lunch and naps.

I think there are two morals to the story. One, if the planets are in alignment and the kids are being good, a morning of errands isn’t impossible, or even unpleasant. They key is noticing when they are (or more importantly aren’t) up for certain things. Also, making errands like this an occasional event enables them to be an adventure, and less of a chore.

Two, going to a different Target because it was “Super” did not benefit me. The selection wasn’t much better than at our neighborhood one, and it took longer to navigate because it was bigger and I didn’t know where everything was.

My results on the 48 hour book challenge were disappointing, but not surprising. Our family had a lot of things to do this weekend, it was Father’s Day, plus there have been the usual shenanigans with 2 small kids, and there was not nearly so much reading as I would have liked. There was, however, still reading. I was heartened that, even with everything else going on, I kept trying. Here’s when and what I read from Friday morning to Sunday morning:

Friday

8:42 to 8:46 a.m. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, while nursing Guppy, who seems to be protesting the “read while nursing” thing by popping on and off randomly and in general becoming a far less enthusiastic and conscientious nurser. He’s just four months old, though, and this is consistent with development, as they suddenly become much more aware and distracted by what’s going on around them. It does interfere with reading, though. My 2yo Drake was having some out-of-diaper time, and chose this time to pee on the floor. He did get a towel and wipe it up after I asked him to, though. Total pages read: 3. Very annoyed by Holden’s voice, and aware that if it were written today, all the “goddamn”s would be “fucking”s.

11:10 a.m. to 1:10 p.m. had a friend and her 2yo over so she and I could discuss Sense and Sensibility. No reading done, but definite book talk, in between toddler discipline sessions for jumping on furniture, screaming indoors, throwing toys, not sharing, etc.

1:35 to 1:50 p.m. Read books to Drake before his nap. He chooses from our current selections from the library as well as from his own library.

Sheep in Wolves Clothing by Satoshi Kitamura. I love Kitamura’s art, and this is a fun, clever book with wool-thieving wolves who knit and listen to jazz. It’s a long-time favorite of Drake’s.

Two Old Potatoes and Me by John Coy. Coy is a Minnesotan author, and Drake has asked to hear this library book over and over. The story, about a dad and daughter who try to grow new potatoes from old ones, is told in simple prose with striking graphics; many of the words are incorporated into the pictures. There’s a short interlude that reveals the girl is visiting her dad and usually lives with her mom. It could easily have seemed thrown in, but both the art and sensitive dialogue from the father to the daughter help this spread mesh with the book, and deepen the reader’s appreciation for the characters.

Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell, ill. by Helen Oxenbury. I saw this at Book Moot alongside the Oxenbury-illustrated We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, which was another recent library favorite of Drake’s. Farmer Duck works the farm because the farmer is too lazy. Drake has listened to Farmer Duck so many times in the few weeks we’ve had it in the house that he’s memorized several pages of Waddell’s inviting, poetic prose. I enjoy the cadence of the words as I read aloud, and Oxenbury’s textured watercolor illustrations are charming without being at all cutesy.

1:55 to 2:00 p.m. Read books to Guppy before his nap.

Moo, Baa, La, La, La by Sandra Boynton One of our first board books from when Drake was a baby, with Boynton’s usual cute animals and sense of humor.
See the Rabbit and Baby Sleeps, by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. Simple phrases and illustrations of babies doing all the baby-ish things.

4:34 to 4:40 p.m. Nursed Guppy, read another three pages of Catcher.

5:05 to 5:10 Snuck in another two pages of Catcher while the boys were happy and occupied.

5:30 to 5:50 Read board books to Guppy while he had tummy time:

The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss Seuss’s rhymes, while different in board book form, are still some of the best.
1, 2, 3 by Tana Hoban Great photo illustrations
Go, Dog, Go by P. D. Eastman. Completely different in board book form, but still fun, though the final rhyme is forced.
Hey, Wake Up by Sandra Boynton When Drake was younger, he would laugh and laugh at the “broccoli stew” line. Though he eventually stopped, I will always love this book for that.
Mighty Movers: Diggers and Dumpers One of Drake’s favorites. Hardly an intellectual challenge.
The Snowy Day Beautiful prose and lovely illustrations.
A to Z by Sandra Boynton has some charming combinations: Frogs Frowning and Hippos Hiding are two favorites.

7:55 to 8:00 p.m. Read board books to Guppy for bed, while my husband read to Drake.

Pajama Time by Boynton is a decent bedtime book, but writing it up here makes me realize it’s only OK, and probably doesn’t deserve a permanent spot in the rotation.
The Going to Bed Book by Boynton, though, has both fun illustrations and a good rhyming cadence, with an amusing interlude. This was Drake’s final book before bed for a long, long time.
Goodnight, Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I love reading aloud Brown’s rhymes, which are never forced. I find the illustration OK, but it’s the words that make me love this book.

8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Various grown-up stuff that I can’t get to while the kids are awake, like showering and watching a TV show.

11:00 p.m. Read eight pages of Catcher to get to the end of a chapter, but was too tired to read more. Depressed to have only made it to page 16 by the end of the day.

Saturday

I didn’t write down the times I read, but I had several errands to run, so there was much less reading in general. I read a few pages of Catcher each time I nursed Guppy, and Drake asked me to read him the graphic novel Scott Pilgrim #3, so I did a few pages while expressing milk. I had to euphemize some of the language, and I read just enough to realize I’m going to need to re-read #s 1 and 2 before tackling 3.

By the time the boys were in bed, I’d read enough of Catcher to come to appreciate Holden, and to see through the annoying bluster of his language. He’s a decent guy, I thought, more empathetic than most. Not a jerk, though certainly capable of aggravating. When I continued to read, another throught crept in, which was an awareness of the writer behind the scenes, creating this character who is vulnerable and kind to women. I began to suspect Salinger of the same thing that is one of Holden’s many pet peeves:

If you do something too good, then after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good anymore.

I finished the night at only page 76, a little more than a third of the way through my mmpb edition, but too tired to read more.

Sunday morning

Guppy woke to nurse around 6, then went back to sleep. I grabbed Catcher and went downstairs and got in another thirty pages or so by the time he and Drake got up, which put me at about half way through. Began to wonder if it was Salinger who hated social artifice and the movies, and if he ventriloquised through Holden.

So for the 48 hour challenge between 8:42 a.m. on Friday and 8:42 a.m. on Sunday, I read 3 picture books, 13 board books, about 20 pages of Scott Pilgrim #3, and 106 pages of Catcher in the Rye. I don’t have either a complete page count or an exact time count, though I think it added up to about 4 hours. I’d hoped to do more reading for myself, but I did persevere in spite of myriad errands, tasks, and interruptions.

Added later: I know mine wasn’t exactly congruent with the book challenge–committing time to check out the unread YA books in one’s life. But since that’s part of my overall summer challenge, and since getting through a busy weekend and re-reading Catcher and reading to the boys is what I have to do to clear the way to the unread YA books, I think I still fell within the spirit of the challenge.

I’ve been checking out a few new book and reading blogs lately. Today at Book Moot I found a link to MotherReader’s 48-hour reading challenge. Since the challenge arose from her reading backlog of literature for older kids/teens, and since I have several of that kind of book already on my summer reading challenge list, I think I’ll give it a shot. I’m also interested in showing when and how I read, because I hear other moms say they don’t have time to read. I’ve got a four-month old and a 2 year old, and I make time to read for myself, in addition to the reading I do to them. Other things go undone, but reading ranks right up there with eating, sleeping, childcare and writing. Most everything else is negotiable.

or, How a Toddler is like a Vampire, though only a vampire like in the X-Files episode “Bad Blood”.

Connecting straps (as to secure an infant into a seat) are all securely fastened, which will require infant juggling (not a recommended activity) to undo.

Power switches are not in the position in which you left them. My husband, G. Grod, spent all Sunday morning procuring ingredients for and preparing a chili for our slow cooker. Weren’t we surprised several hours later, come dinner time, to find the switch on “auto” and not high. Pizza for dinner.

The shoelaces on your shoes (NOT the toddler’s) are unlaced.