5 Joys of Parenting

Mary tagged me with this and it's taken me a few days to be in the right frame of mind to tackle it. Jacob is on spring break and is therefore bored out of his gourd, my diet is stalling out, Nick is writing term papers, pick your reason. It's been a long week. But! I have just about managed to free my inner Pollyanna and end this week on a good note. So, without further ado, I present 5 things I love about parenting:

1. Little League. No, I am not living vicariously through my child. It turns out that an hour at the ball field is a rollicking good time. I sit next to my husband for a whole hour. I talk to friends. I watch the occasionally hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking moments on the field. I yell, "Wooooooooo!" or "It's ok! You'll get it next time!" I hold my breath whenever the uncoordinated kid goes to bat, hoping that this time he manages to hit the ball. And when he does, I leap to my feet and roar with the rest of the parents. At the end of the night, I am grinning like a fool. The first game of the year is on Tuesday. I cannot wait.
2. Confidence in my own abilities. In my childless days I assumed that if I wanted to learn a new skill, I had to enlist an expert to teach me. My kids have taught me that I can figure out almost anything. I can make a Halloween costume from a picture in a comic book. I can decorate a cake to look like a clown. I can fix a bike. I can speak entirely in rhymes for an hour. And it's not because I'm particularly talented or intelligent - it's because a child believes that I can.
3. Singing. Having very small children is a great excuse to sing at any time. I love to sing and there are only a limited number of situations in which singing is an option. Add a child to the equation and that number expands exponentially. And they sing too!
4. Poetry. Children, especially when they are learning to speak, are astonishingly poetic. They don't have a large vocabulary so they have to use their small vocabulary creatively. "I'll make my feet whisper," Claire told me the other day when I said her jumping would wake up Daddy. When Jacob was feeling anxious, he told me that his heart was "bouncing around." They just throw these phrases around like they're nothing and then wonder why I am smiling.
5. Jokes. What does a bunny sing at a birthday party? Hoppy birthday to you! It just doesn't get better than that.

I'm tagging Cheri, Chelsea, Sara, and Lisa (but I'll be patient since she's having a baby right this very instant).

A little fun

Lifted from Katie because it suits my mood. Pick a musical artist/group, then answer the questions using song titles from that artist. Guess who I chose.

1. Are you male or female? My Sweet Lady
2. Describe yourself: Looking for Space
3. How do you feel about yourself? Rhymes and Reasons
4. Describe where you currently live? Back Home Again
5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Two Different Directions
6. Your best friend is? Annie's Song
7. Your favorite color? Cool an' Green an' Shady
8. You know that? Some Days are Diamonds
9. What’s the weather like? Southwind (or windy)
10. If your life was a TV show, what would it be called? Sunshine on my Shoulders
11. What is life like to you? Poems, Prayers, and Promises
12. What is the best advice you have to give? Let It Be
13. If you could change your name what would it be? Calypso (OK, not really. But that would be fun for a day or two.)
14. Your favorite food is? The Eagle and the Hawk (or roast poultry)

Yes, some songs are covers. I am ok with that and I encourage you to be ok with that too.

Now is the time. And then bed.

Live the Gospel! Now is the time. That's the theme of my son's school year and the upcoming mission for Lent. I've been thinking about it a lot and it suits since I'm a born procrastinator. OK, so I should probably be concentrating on the first portion, but the second portion has my attention. So I'm making a list and going through all the minutae that I've been putting off - after reading some blogs, of course. And then Katie tagged me for a meme, and well, now is the time! Right? And then bed because I'm tired. But tomorrow, tomorrow I will work on the list and the minutae and perhaps even a few thoughts about Lent.

1) Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?


 Almost any book that has been featured on Oprah Winfrey's show. I read a few, then was scarred forever by White Oleander. Now, her approval is like a death knell for a book regardless of how many other people recommend it. 


2) If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
Dinner, of course. And let's see...Anne of Green Gables, Lord Peter Wimsey, and someone fun and a little crazy. Someone out of a T.R. Pearson novel.

3) (Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?The Five People You Meet in Heaven. 


4) Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?

Who? Me? I'm scrupulously honest. 


5) You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (If you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead and personalise the VIP). The 58 Pound Marriage by John Irving. It's a tremendously underappreciated book.
 


6) A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

 Chinese. I suspect that a lot gets lost in translation.

7) A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

I very, very rarely re-read books and then only the very best books after years have passed. So I choose Where the Wild Things Are so I can get it over with and move on with my life.

8) I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)? 

 I have no idea. I might come back to this in a few days. I might not.



9) That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather bound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free. My dream library isn't a personal one. It's a public library where the book I want is always on the shelf, where kids can be noisy, and where the lights are very bright.

100 Books

I lifted this from Nikole, who lifted it from Katie. I like books, so what the hey! How Many Have You Read? Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you want to read. Leave same the ones that you aren’t interested in. 1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) 2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) 3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) 4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) 5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) 6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) 7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) 8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) 9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) 10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) 11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) 12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) 13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling) 14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) 15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) 16. Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone (Rowling) 17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald) 18. The Stand (Stephen King) 19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling) 20 Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) 21. The Hobbit (Tolkien) 22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) 23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) 24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) 25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel) 26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) 27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) 28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) 29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck) 30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom) 31. Dune (Frank Herbert) 32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) 33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) 34. 1984 (Orwell) 35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) 36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) 37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay) 38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) 39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) 40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) 41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) 42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) 43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella) 44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) - started it. Yawn. 45. Bible 46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) 47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) 48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) 49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) 50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) 51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) 52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) 53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) 54. Great Expectations (Dickens) 55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) 56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence) 57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) 58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) 59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) 60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger) 61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) 62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) 63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) - I've read excerpts 64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) 65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis) 66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) 67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) 68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) 69. Les Miserables (Hugo) 70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) 71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) 72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) 73. Shogun (James Clavell) 74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) 75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) 76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay) 77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) 78. The World According To Garp (John Irving) 79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence) 80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) 81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley) 82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) 83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) 84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) 85. Emma (Jane Austen) 86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) 87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) 88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) 89. Blindness (Jose Saramago) 90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer) 91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) 92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) 93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck) 94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) 95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) 96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) 97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch) 98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford) 99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) 100. Ulysses (James Joyce) - I've read excerpts only Grumpage: What's with Dan Brown and JK Rowling? Brown writes poorly researched fiction so far as I can tell (I have read excerpts) and Rowling writes children's books. I understand that they are good children's books, but still. Kind of an odd list. But it did remind me of some books that I want to read, so there's that. Request: If you have recommendations for me based on what I've read, I'd love to hear them.