A Quiet Egg and Some Easter-y Books for Tots

Despite the cool breeze and clouds today, spring is upon us-- so vividly that we are praying for a shower to knock the pollen down. Everything right now has a yellow haze, and sniffles and sinus headaches abound. One good shower and the air will be sparkling clean and we can fully enjoy everything that is literally bursting around us. I am hoping to get to the campus where my husband works to take pictures in the next few days. Dogwoods! Daffodils! Tulips!

In our library bag this week we have a couple of especially sweet and spring-y Easter books. We focus very much on the sacred celebration of Easter with the boys, but the innocence and gentle tone of these finds is a nice compromise to me. The Easter Chick is a precious story of a slow-hatching chick who has his heart set on an Easter morning birthday. With the help of his mom, Hilda the hen, and a wise owl's counsel, the chick gets his wish. In the process, we learn how the date of Easter is set. The illustrations are sweet, especially the expressions of the waiting chick inside his egg.

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes
tells the tale of a little bunny who dreams of being one of the swift and wise Easter bunnies. She devotes her life to becoming a mother bunny, and her children are the evidence of her intelligence and stamina. This is a classic we had not encountered before, and both boys loved it.

We are also doing a bit of reading on farms and farmers, and heading to our local Farmer's Market on Saturday. I always think every season gets better than the last for learning with the little ones.

Have a happy day.


By the way, blogger does odd things with the text size and font when I add in links and then will not let me make the post uniform, so I apologize for the distracting text issues, but I've wrestled with it for awhile and would never publish a post if I waited to figure it out. So, blogger, the plot thickens. . . subtitled. . . you get what you pay for. . . :)

Drought and Plenty

I love the challenge and the book reviews and links, but I am going through a bit of a photo-drought on my own blog!! I will post later today or tomorrow about the spring and Easter kids books we've been enjoying, but in the meantime, I'll share a couple of shots of birthday treats! The enchanting cup and saucer came from my dear friend Rachel, and are a Starbucks goody. It makes me feel pampered just to have a midafternoon cup of coffee from that prettiness.

The confection is a bar of delectable raspberry goodness, given by my sister in law Kelly from our local Straussner's bakery. It came in their trademark blue and white striped box, with a chocolate sprinkled friend.

They did not last the day.

I'll close for now with the end of a comment I wrote at a blog community I belong to, when asked how I'm doing: "Honestly, I feel so very thankful-- after struggling with depression off and on for many months, I feel happy and busy and creative-- not enough hours for all the good things in the day."


Okay, I just hit publish, and I am am not sure why text is running over the pictures, or why the text size is different every day, even though I don't mess with it. Ah, Blogger, we have a complicated relationship. . .

The Read Aloud Handbook

The Read Aloud Handbook was on my list for the Spring Reading Challenge, and I finished it this weekend, in that I finished reading the text. I will not stop using it as a resource for many years.

The link above is for the sixth edition. I read a library copy of the fourth edition, but I can only imagine it has improved with revision and additions. I am planning on purchasing this most recent edition.

We have always read to the boys. Not really with any more intention than that we loved books, we wanted them to love books, and a vague notion that books=good. What Jim Trelease told me, and showed over and over with statistics of all kinds, was that we were doing a great thing. That by reading aloud to the boys we are widening their world, enlarging their vocabulary threefold from what they would learn from everyday conversation, and giving them the chance to "catch" the love of reading from us. Even our home, constantly with piles of our books, library books and magazines has apparently provided rich soil to grow avid readers.

The best thing I learned from this book was the importance of continuing to read aloud as a family, and specifically to Joshua, though he can read himself. It maintains connection, he can listen to and understand richer books and other materials than he can read for himself now, and the value of enjoying books together, day after day, transmits a love for it that is priceless.

The book has much information for parents, teachers, and librarians alike. It did make me aware of the sheer depressing number of worksheets Joshua does at school (in K5!) each week, but grateful that he has a teacher who reads aloud to his class.

Half of the book is a discussion of the value of reading aloud, and introduces concepts like Sustained Silent Reading, time periods in which the students / child or children AND teacher / parent have a set period of time for solo reading of their own choosing. That way, there is time for silent reading, but the child also gets to see the teacher or parent reading. Trelease also visits topics like computer-based, points-driven reading programs in schools and the phenomenon of Oprah's book club and the Internet.

The second half of the book is called the Read Aloud treasury, and has lists and synopses of books, with recommended listening ages, to read aloud in classroom or home-- a great resource.

Reading this book has definitely altered how I look at reading aloud especially to Joshua, and how I will structure our informal learning time during the coming summer. Trelease's passion about kids and books and his stories of transformed school libraries are inspirational. Despite getting a bit bogged down with statistics in places, I am so glad I read this book, as it has made me a better informed and more committed parent.





Loose Cabooses and Book Buddies

From our library bag last week, The Caboose Who Got Loose was a charming story that Sam, almost four, wanted to hear over and over. Katy the caboose does not like her life at the back of the freight train, jolted and bumped through dark tunnels and along steep ridges, breathing black smoke. She dreams of a pastoral life in the quiet countryside. She decides at last to make peace with her lot in life, but just as she does, she gets her wish in a fun and satisfying ending, with just enough suspense. The illustrations are cheerful and the rhyme and rhythm delightful. I am sure this will come home with us again.

Reading through all the posts on the Spring Reading Challenge yesterday, I felt so filled up. All these women, busy with home and kids and jobs and all the things that snatch and shred our time, and we're finding the moments to dip into pages, to learn, to imagine other worlds, to be entertained and enlightened and certainly changed. That is the kind of thing that really gets my motor running.

Thanks to everybody out there who inspires me-- if you see good stuff here, it is likely it was shared by somebody else, cast from a generous hand into this rich and nourishing soup we're all making of ideas and discussion and challenge and recipes and homelife and books and creativity and always always grace. I tip my hat to you, and add my voice.


Spring Reading Challenge

Katrina at Callipider Days is hosting a spring reading challenge. Like so many other good things, I learned about it from my faithful commenter, Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

I am up for anything that can tame my terrifying book pile. You can visit Katrina's blog to see what everybody is reading. I am planning on posting my progress now and then and some book reviews as well.

So here is what I'll be reading over the next three months. I also always find more at the library, so hopefully more goodies will join these:

1. The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

2. Dwelling Places by Vanita Hampton Wright

3. Taking Care of the Me in Mommy by Lisa Whelchel

4. My Heart's in the Lowlands by Liz Curtis Higgs

5. Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld

I am looking at this list and it is totally weighted toward non-fiction. So I am sure I will mix in some fun light fiction as I go.

Also, so inspired by by buddy Nina at Painted Rainbows, I am going to be sharing the best of the children's books we bring home from the library over the next few months. I have been so blessed by the thoughtful reviews and recommendations of other moms who want to find the very best literature for their children. So when we find a treasure, I'll be sharing.

My love of words is one of my earliest loves--- it came before I discovered photography, before I became a wife and mother, before I had a home to care for, it stretches like a silver thread all the way back to a little girl, reading Anne of Green Gables until the cover fell off, traveling in a wagon across the prairies with Laura Ingalls, devouring Alcott and Bronte and Nancy Drew, greedy with feasting on poems and paragraphs and stories. The characters I discovered in Teribithia and Portland and New York City gave me the most priceless gift, a home in my own skin. All schoolday I was surrounded by peers with whom I felt so utterly wrong-- wrongness and otherness seemed to follow me like a fragrance. But coming home to books was like skimming out of a scratchy ill-fitting skin, and into a velvet cocoon which could transform me into anything.

And I know now that those long afternoons between the pages made me, me.

So come along. Read some good stuff, and talk about it.

It's a good thing.

(Now, can anybody invent something so I can read, embroider, build a soldier fort with Sam and watch Ina Garten roast a chicken simultaneously?)




Thirty-Five

On my birthday, thirty-five people and things I love, in no specific order:

1. my precious husband, who has seen it all, and still loves me, laughs with me, the face I most want to see at the first and last of each day

2. Joshua, firstborn and delightful, confident and good-hearted

3. Sam the strong-hearted, who has a thousand imagined adventures before nine am

4. my sister's warmth and understanding and the laughter we share

5. girlfriends near and far-- Megan, Rachel, Debi, Rachel, Becca, Kelly-- for parenting and fashion and art advice, for fun and challenge and grace

6. the book of Philippians

7. Brach's Maple Nut Goodies-- I have never met anyone else who likes this candy, so I have no idea why they still make them, but I hope they never stop

8. Jane Austen-- book-- Sense and Sensibility movie-- Mansfield Park

9. Hyacinths

10. Nothing But the Blood of Jesus by Jars of Clay and the Blind Boys of Alabama

11. Forget About It by Alison Krauss

12. Beth Moore's Believing God study

13. Hot shrimp and crab dip from the Overlook Grill

14. Downtown Greenville

15. Taking pictures

16. Embroidering while the boys play

17. Clean sheets

18. Jones Gap

19. Sunrise over Paris Mountain, as seen from my breakfast room

20. Reading aloud to the boys

21. The Lady of Shallot by Loreena McKennitt

22. My Father's Pizza in Black Mountain

23. my fabulous neices

24. Finding a new author and loving his or her work

25. Lisa Samson's books about real life and no cheap grace

26. Let All Things Now Living

27. French silk pie

28. Jon Stewart on The Daily Show I just cannot help it-- he makes me laugh insanely hard

29. Speaking of TV-- The West Wing-- I still miss it

30. newly sharpened pencils

31. Lemon scented candles

32. Decorating for Christmas, loving every bit, and then the wonderful clean and spacious feeling when you put it all away again

33. Berry picking, and coming home and making something yummy right away

34. fall leaves

35. New mercy every morning, knowing I need it, and the big God Who pours it out over me lavishly.

Life is so full of good things. An embarrassment of riches really. For a birthday or anyday treat, count them up. I had to make myself stop.

Have a happy day!

It All Looked Good. . .

On Saturday we paid a flying visit to my sister in Georgia, part celebrating my birthday which is tomorrow, and part visiting a grower's outlet near her as part of our rejuvenation of our tired yard.

In the midst of little seas of gallon and three gallon pots, and racks of smaller plants five shelves high, I felt that urgency. That springtime restlessness to put something in the ground, to firm the earth and water and nurture and watch and wait.

So we filled the back of the station wagon. Gardenias and Japanese hollies, mock orange and hostas, tea olive to scent the patio.

And today, I am feeling it. In a different way. In hips and back, shoulders and arms that lifted little more than a book, a coffee cup or camera over the winter. I spent most of my time outside yesterday raking dead pecan leaves out from the borders and bagging them, then trimming and cutting away at the old diseased shrubbery that we are slowly but surely replacing. John hacked away at stumps and dug holes and planted about half of our cargo from Georgia. Suffice it to say that this season will not offer the picturesque side of landscaping to us.

But it should cost something, the dream of scent and color and our own stamp on this little piece of earth, some planning and purchasing and sweat and work and love. It will take a year or more to get to what excites me, the flowers for vases and my lens. But this foundation we make will really show their beauty when their time comes.

So it is a good tired. For now I'll be thankful for the daffodils Mom brought me from her forty year old garden, and bide my time. Sweet dreams.

Hand in Hand

It does not get much better than the clutch of baby fingers, that instinctive grip around our hearts. This particular pair of hands belong to my sister-in-law and her younger son, from a sunny morning I spent with them earlier this week, recording his nearly-new sweetness for birth announcements, brag books and frames.

I braced myself, a bit. For a wash of emotion and wistfulness, that would flow in with his milky scent. We have felt for awhile a peace from God about the size of our little family, a sense of completion and fullness. But I loved having my babies, and I adored them in their tiny, God-fresh perfection, and I was prepared to be carried away with nostalgia at best and doubt at worst.

And I loved this feel of the little bundle in my arms, and the cuddle of the little face into my neck, and the impossible smallness of every fingernail and the softness of earlobe and cheek. But I came away still peaceful, filled, happy. Happy to be having a lively conversation with Sam over lunch, happy to meet my big boy at the bus and hear about and help him process his school day. Happy to have these bigger hands in mine for the journey. No doubt about it, it is fun to hear my boy read to me, and have help making cupcakes, and see drawings that are rich in imagination and detail, and have one of them say to me, "Remember when. . . "

All the time I am reminded what a blessing it is to be present for every part of these little lives, to move from year to year with them, to give and receive help and love, to climb and grow together. Not letting go, hand in hand, holding close in heart.

Walk hand in hand with somebody you love this weekend.

Planning and Growing

Saturday was a happy day-- lovely here with a breath of spring in the air. We headed over to Lowes in the morning to look at the plants and start planning our work in the yard. When we moved into the house last year, putting up a fence and working inside took all our home improvement time and dollars. But we need to pretty much start over with landscaping, so that is the mission we begin this year.

Of course, as excited as I am about new, healthy shrubs and blooming flowers, I am a home decorator at heart, so I wandered inside eventually to mull over bathroom paint colors. When John and the boys came to find me, we heard an announcement that a kids' workshop was about to begin. We headed over to check it out, and the boys ended up building miniature basketball hoops, and brought those home along with work aprons and safety goggles. All for the price of $0.00. They were delighted to wield the little hammers and watch a toy take shape.

The last few days have been hectic, but so rich with blessing. We live on limited means, but I've felt so wealthy in time with my beloveds, the staggering piles of books we carried out of the library yesterday, music and meals around the table and the openness of little hearts and minds. After a long winter, longer than the space from solstice to equinox, I feel myself waking up to a gladness unmistakable. I wish you a spring of the heart and mind as well as the season.

Making the Connection

Lately I've been feeling a little out of touch with my elder son. Nothing dramatic, just not as connected. Feeling like a lot of our relating is transacting, rather than weaving together. And true to personality, I've been worrying about it.

Some of this, surely, must be natural. He is a schoolboy now, with a whole little world away from the home, friends whose opinions and tastes and expressions are rubbing up against and off on him all the time. He needs to pull away from us some-- identify himself with the world outside of Home as a part of becoming independent. But how much of this is "normal?" And where might I be dropping the ball relationally?

It is a strange thing to contemplate, into my seventh year of mommying full time. That I can be with my kids all the time, many many hours a week, as I am, and we can still miss each other.

So yesterday afternoon, John busied Sam with another project. Joshua had been my helper this week in the grocery store, and we bought the "Funfetti" cake mix and frosting with the colored sprinkles he has always asked for and always been refused, and we made a date. Side by side at the counter we ran the mixer, we laughed that he was much better at cracking the eggs than I, we filled the baking cups, and we were just both THERE, fully present in that moment. No deep discussions, no revelations, just a few minutes where what we were doing was being together.

He proudly presented the cupcakes for dessert after dinner, and my breath caught in my throat--- he is so tall and confident and so OURS and yet so OTHER. He is working me out of a job, this boy. But he needs me yet, more than he admits, and together we will navigate these strange and beautiful years to come. Steady on.

Fill Er Up

Morning has slipped into afternoon, and the air outside is warming up. Every day, a bit more light around the edges. Everywhere there is the slow feeling of waking up, a green mist over the yard, daffodils' yellow throats, and seed catalogues in the mailbox. A few cold cold nights hang on, but the sun steals their frost earlier in the day every time. We are ready.

Today Joshua returns to his working with clay class. We don't do much in the way of extracirriculars, so this is a rarity for our family. (I will save my soapbox about that for another day. Moderation in everything.) And he loves it. And as a result of John taking him, and Sam along for a trip to the nearby library, I will have nearly two precious hours on my own this afternoon. So, what should I do? Read? Scrapbook? (What's that??) Sleep? Write? Make more fabric flower pins?

What do you do with non-kid time?

New and Improved

It started out small. A leak from the drain, kind of gross but not a big problem. Then there were the parts that had to be parted to fix the leak. They would not be parted. So, roughly eight hours and two trips to Lowes later, by ten pm on Sunday night, I give you our new sink and faucet, plumbed in by my sweetie. A classic example of what we call, in homage to the children's book, a
"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" project.

As I fluttered around, chattering worriedly about expense and timing, John was not only hardworking but philisophical. ("It is something I can do the labor on myself, so no costly weekend call to a plumber." "We were going to replace it anyway." "Now the faucet won't leak." "Look, the deeper sink you wanted.") All the while, on his back, under the sink, where it did not smell or look pretty at all. As far as home improvement goes, I am the prettifying department. He is chief and crew of just about everything else.

I am very blessed in my husband. Not only handy, but level-headed and good-natured about it.

So that was how the weekend ended. Thankfully, it also included worship, with the Lord's Supper, hiking along a fast, cold river, black bean soup, a grandparent visit, and lots of sunshine. So this morning, I feel a bit new and improved myself, ready for mothering, for homekeeping, for crafting, for a new week of words and images and spring coming on, a little more every day.

Quaker Summer

I have just finished the amazing journey of reading Quaker Summer
by Lisa Samson. If you have read Lisa's novels before, you know they are populated with characters for whom both God and earthly life are very real, and sometimes raw. There is plenty of dirt under the fingernails, skinned knees and bruised egos. And a startling lack of pat answers.

Quaker Summer follows eight months in the life of Heather Curridge, as she travels from her lavish home by the loch to the privileged school her son attends, into the path of a kangaroo and a home of wise women, to a last chance hotel housing homeless drug addicts and a nun with a raw knuckled hope. God holds up a mirror to Heather through the many vivid characters who surround her, and pries from her her addiction to things, the false comforts she has swaddled herself in, but also her guilt and grief at her role as a childhood tormentor.

Heather's Suburban plows her forward on a path that is relentless and impossible to abandon. Many times I held the book in my lap to pause to laugh, to cry, to gasp in self-recognition, or just breathe the priceless and unexplainable grace, that against all odds, envelops us, beloved by God.

Lisa Samson employs her usual deft balance of character development and introspection with a bracing plot. She skillfully moves us backward and forward in time, all over the map of our carefully ordered sense of the different parts of the Body of Christ, and is as unflinching in her rendering of doubt, questions and cruelty as she is in her compassion and respect for her characters.

I am more than thankful I read this book, but I can't say yet all the ways it will change me. There's room. Join Heather and find yourself in the story.

Whew!

I am having one of those days when being here quietly with Sam, catching up on laundry and giving the bathrooms and kitchen a good clean sounds just right. Thick clouds have rolled in to replace the springlike sun and warm breezes of earlier this week, and I feel tucked in and grateful.

Busy weeks like this one make me realize again that we live at a very non-typical slow pace compared to many of our contemporaries, and that suits our family and personalities to a T. This week has been full to the brim of good things, surely, but we are all tired and worn and ready for rest. My mommy instinct has always said to keep things chill, and it is nice to realize that it fits us well.

But I would not trade away one morsel of the full plate of this week. We began with a bang, with the birth of our new nephew on Monday evening! He is precious and dear as all babies are, but we hold him extra close because his mom and dad had a long road to see his little face.

Tuesday brought the shoot here at the house for an ad for our town's minor league baseball team. A friend of ours was art directing the project, and needed a retro kitchen. The cabinets we painted but did not replace when we moved in, and the charcoal and cream diagonal checkerboard tile John laid fit the bill. They hauled in an old gold refrigerator and a little boy arranged magnets on it. Very nostalgic feel. I will look at the "simplest" ad differently from now on. I think at one point there were ten or twelve people here to make it happen, and with our furniture askew and the dishes from my china cupboard piled everywhere, it looked like a cast of thousands. Of course I was drooling over the photography equipment. So they swept in, and about an hour and a half later they were gone and I was putting cups back on hooks. John had whisked Joshua to his art class and Sam to the library, so when they returned, it was to our peaceful home and pizza before a visit to meet their new cousin.

Yesterday brought my final contracted photo shoot for a client. About that I feel a deep thankfulness for the experience of recording the growth and change of children and the love of families, but it was time, to acknowledge that my art, my passion for photography has gone in a different direction. I will continue to photograph a select few kids and families now and then, as favors for family or for a little income, but as a formal business, I am done. I have learned a lot, and much of that can serve me in my pursuit of still lifes, landscapes, and other "art shots."

So home has returned to normal, and the weekend is coming with no plans, which sounds utterly delightful to me. It is good to be back here, thinking of nothing more taxing than a basket of ironing and a big salad for dinner. Wishing everybody a peaceful day!