Advent Gratitude, Day 6: Books Again, and Boys

My first grader is learning to read. It's the coolest thing in the world, and I love being a part of it.

We recently arranged an elaborate hand off on a Kindle so I could get an upgrade (thank you, family!!) This sparked Duncan to ask when he could have a Kindle of his own, like his big sister. Answer: When he could read chapter books as well as Charlotte. This seems to have lit a fire under him, because he has been very patiently and laboriously working through a Junie B. Jones story. Have you read Junie B.? She uses lots of big words, like actually, situation, and frustration. As in: "he got frustration in him."

The cool thing here is that the method of instruction used at our school encourages kids to use the pictures to deduce words that are giving them trouble. Not so many pictures in Junie B., so D is having to remember phonetic rules and rely on reading a sentence to the end to deduce a hard word. Which he is doing, with a degree of patience that my daughter never, ever exhibited. It is fun to watch and a relaxing way to spend an afternoon snuggling my growing guy.

Quentin distinguished himself at school today by making a BB gun out of paper and craft tape. Complete with a little paper BB. He couldn't even get out the door before he was telling me about it. I checked with the preschool teacher to make sure he hadn't violated some kind of school rule (as he certainly would have been doing at the elementary school), and then spent a few minutes apologizing for my violent boy. The other moms laughed. Another boy picked up a six-foot-long fallen branch and began threatening our sons with it -- so I felt much better. Then I put Quentin in the car and listened to a dissertation about the nature of and uses for BBs all the way home. It's nice that he falls in the fat part of the bell curve.

I'm looking for a reasonable follow-up to Warm Bodies. I'm contemplating another zombie book (but I'm also a little bit afraid to), or maybe Gone Girl or the Rob Lowe biography I'm supposed to be reading for book club (which, by the way, ladies, I am so grateful for all of you as well!!). Any thoughts???

What are you grateful for?

Advent Gratitude, Days 4 & 5: Books and Girls.

I didn't write a post yesterday because I was totally absorbed by a book that I found because of my Day 3 gratitude.

Can I just say... WOW.

Warm Bodies is a debut novel by Isaac Marion which, fortunate man, was not only optioned for a movie but actually previewed at the Breaking Dawn Part 2 screening I saw on Sunday. The preview looked fun (see the trailer here), but the book is a lot more. (Isaac Marion has a blog, rather more sporadic than this one, for anyone who wants to connect with him.)

The idea behind Warm Bodies is kind of Zombie Romeo meets Post-Apocalyptic Juliet, but the book reaches deeper than that, into the path to apocalypse, the difference between a zombie and a human, the nature of hope, and the elements of a high-quality life. Don't read this book because you want to read a zombie novel -- although Marion offers a witty, funny, compassionate first-person perspective on zombie existence. Read it because it's a damn good read.

I also finally finished Lytton Strachey by Michael Holroyd. Lytton Strachey was a contemporary and close friend of Virginia Woolf's, a fellow writer and, in fact, was even momentarily engaged to her when she was still Virginia Stephen. He was also a homosexual who was 13 when Oscar Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labor for a homosexual love affair. He is famous for his dramatic and subversive biographies of the lions of the Victorian age, and for his rather Byzantine personal life. This 700 page tome took me a looooong time to finish, so I'm grateful for Holroyd's insight into Strachey's life and character, and also that I can recommend a movie, Carrington, to anyone who is interested in the gossipy arty bits and willing to pass on all the thoughtful analysis.

So my gratitude for today is my girl, and her girlfriends. Those zany, goofy, silly girls spent a long afternoon at my house today, and they wrestled in the backyard, did homework together, dressed up and put on crazy makeup, pretended to be zombies in the front yard, baked cookies and ate them, played "Call Me Maybe" at top volume (but only once, thank goodness), and generally behaved like girls having a wonderful time. They never beat up on any of the little brothers who couldn't resist their crazy energy. When they left, my girl hugged me and thanked me for their fun day, cleaned up nicely, ate her dinner, and passed out in bed 45 minutes earlier than usual.

I like making my kids happy. Sometimes they surprise me by making it easy to please them. I am grateful.

Advent Gratitude, Day 2: Yes.

View of the houseboats
on the Bay Trail

It was a day of YES.

I heard Quentin squirming on the floor of my bedroom where he was camped for some reason, but instead of getting up with him as usual I said YES to more sleep and had the pleasure of waking up ninety minutes later to my husband delivering a fresh cup of coffee to my bedside table.

I'd made plans to see Breaking Dawn Part Two with a friend, and when she called to adjust them a bit, I was able to say YES to an early lunch and matinee. She chose the lunch location and so I got to enjoy a really delicious tomato soup and brussels sprout salad at a new restaurant that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. YUM and healthy too!

When I got home from my date my daughter asked if we could take an outing on the Bay Trail. YES meant I raced my kids and held my husband's hand for a few minutes, and got a little exercise which made us all more cheerful.

I could have said NO to any of these things. I could have acted JUST from responsibility, kept my eyes on my to-do list, gotten the laundry done and the sheets changed. But I said YES. I am so grateful.

Advent Gratitude, Day 1: Bridge, Not Barriers

Photo Courtesy of Peter Nijenhuis
(Creative Commons Free to Use or Share)

Friday I took my visiting family members, my husband, and my kids for a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. I've walked the bridge many times, a few times with a kid in tow, but my husband never had, and neither had his mom.

It beat the daylights out of spending the day throwing elbows at Target or Best Buy (we saw the crowd control barriers when we took the kids shopping for their grandparents on Wednesday), it only cost us the little bit of money we spent getting greenscreen pictures of the kids taken for the Christmas cards, and I for one (perhaps the only one) really enjoyed the five mile walk the outing entailed.

So my first day of gratitude is multilayered: I'm grateful we had family visiting to share that great outing; I'm grateful that all the members of our family are healthy enough to undertake that big walk and still be happy (and happy with one another) when we got home again; I'm grateful for the afternoon nap that followed; and I'm really, really grateful to be satisfied enough with my lifestyle that I don't want to be chasing down crazy sales in an environment that absolutely kills the pleasure of the long holiday weekend.

What are you grateful for? Share in the comments -- and let's spread some of this contentment around and share it on your social media field of choice as well!!

Thankful

One of my friends is posting a gratitude a day on Facebook as a nod to "Thankful Month."

I wish I had thought of that.

So I'm thinking I'll adopt December as my gratitude month, as an antidotal lead-up to the consumer frenzy known as Christmas shopping. As my own little protest against the insanity of Black Friday, I'll start a post a day of thankfulness, every day from Black Friday through Christmas Day.

Are you in?

Share your gratitudes in the comments below, and please, share the joy with the rest of the world. Post on Facebook, or Twitter, or when you meet a friend for coffee. Let's not let consumer craziness rule our holidays any more.

REST & BE THANKFUL
(the remainder of the transcription explains who built the road and left the stone, dated 1814)
Argyll, Scotland