July 2010 – SIMCHA FISHER

7 books you will enjoy reading to your kids

Boy, this list was much harder to make than I expected! Too many subcategories. I’ll just have to be satisfied with a general theme of “sevenness,” but I’d like to do more reading lists later. Or is that boring?

These are just seven books which I enjoyed as a child, which my kids read or wanted to hear over and over again, and, most importantly, which I didn’t mind reading to my kids over and over again.

There are so many books which have good stories, but aren’t told well – they’re clunky, wordy, repetitive in the wrong way, or just aren’t crafted with any understanding of how kids listen or think. But these seven are books that got it right, and have fantastic illustrations, too.

Check out Conversion Diary for more links to everyone else’s 7 Quick Takes!

Seven Books You Will Enjoy Reading to Your Kids

–1–

Half Magic by Edward Eager.

I never understood why this book isn’t more widely-read (and I think it would make a great movie, too). One summer, four children find a magic talisman which grants half wishes, which leads not only to complications and surprises, but ethical dilemmas (they accidentally made an iron dog half-alive. Should they make it turn back into iron, or bring it fully to life?). The story is incredibly original, it moves along so nicely, and the children and their relationships with each other are so funny and real–it’s a perfect read-aloud book. The illustrations by N. M. Bodecker are also charming and really add something to the story. The author wrote six other books in the same vein, and all are worth reading, but Half Magic is by far the best.

–2–

The entire Frog and Toad series, Owl at Home, Fables, and Mouse Tales and Mouse Soup written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel.

Lobel also wrote several other books, but these are the best. So simple and deft, so gentle and witty and full of affection. Frog and Toad are imbued with more personality than any character in a modern novel that I can name — but Lobel does it in five pages of easy-reader words. The vocabulary is simple, but it’s no Go, Dog, Gophonics slog– his prose is a delight to read, never a chore. You never have to go back and reread, because you said some dialogue with the wrong expression–it’s all there. Arnold Lobel ought to be studied in writing classes, and “The Dream” ought to be required reading for first confession classes.

–3–

Tales From Grimm told and illustrated by Wanda G’ag.

All the unvarnished truth about fairy tale characters, bloody feet, gouged out eyes, and all. These aren’t just stories, they’re little masterworks of rhythm. The illustrations are otherworldly and unforgettable, and the book includes many less familiar stories, too. Snip, snap, snout, my tale’s told out! (Also by this author, and recommended: The Funny Thing, Millions of Cats, Snippy and Snappy)

–4–

Granfa’ Grig Had a Pig and Other Rhymes without Reason from Mother Gooseselected and illustrated by Wallace Tripp.

I feel like my kids should know Mother Goose, but in most editions, the illustrations are creepy, sappy, or bland. This is because the subject matter of nursery rhymes is often bizarre, and no one is sure how to handle the weirdness. Wallace Tripp, one of my favorite illustrators, lets the lunacy and hilarity come through (often providing sly commentary on the rhyme). They are full of detail to fascinate kids, and they’re just funny and refreshing. He also has inluded lots of lesser-known rhymes that you will be glad to know (“Slug abed, slug abed barley butt, / Your bum is so heavy, you can’t get up” comes to mind).

–5–

D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths

Demeter and Persephone

All of the books written and illustrated by Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire (I just like saying those names!) are wonderful, but Greek Myths is the one I liked the best as a kid. The illustrations always make me think of William Blake on summer vacation: the same primitive feel, the same slightly over-determined composition, and the same naked emotionalism of the faces — but more color, more flesh, more fun. And the stories are just right: they have lots of action, lots of humor and pathos, but manage to be decorous–no easy feat. Those gods were weird.

–6–

Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories.

“The Mixed-Up Feet and the Silly Bridegroom”

For a wonderful introduction to Jewish storytelling, here is a collection of seven sweet, strange, and funny stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, unforgettably illustrated by the master, Maurice Sendak. I’ve read other books written and illustrated by this pair, but this one shows them both at their best.

–7–

Homer Price, More Homer Price, and Centerburg Tales.

Another undeservedly neglected collection. A young boy in a rural town (where, without explanation, several of the inhabitants are named after classical heroes and authors) gets into peculiar adventures with skunks, superheroes, balls of yarn, giant ragweed, mysterious mousecatchers, and disastrously catchy rhymes. Just satisfying and entertaining, and, again, lively and funny illustrations by the author, another favorite of mine, Robert McCloskey.

links to image sources:

Happy weekend, everyone! I’ve been in a fog all week, and can’t get ahold of my syntax. Sorry if anything above doesn’t make sense.

Why don’t you like my shoes?

I am not great with clothes shopping. As I have mentioned before, shopping bundles together being fat and being old and being cheap into a tense, ugly ball of being miserable, effectively blotting out the pleasure of getting new stuff.

You’d think shoe shopping would be different–easier, simpler, less emotionally fraught. You don’t even have to look in the mirror. But somehow, I make it difficult. I don’t know how it is, but all the shoes I come home with are just so dang stupid.

The one exception is what I was wearing today, when I took three kids for their well-child check ups. I then drove three kids right back home again when seemingly-well child #3 threw up on previously-well children numbers 1 and 2 in the doctor’s parking lot. Then I went to the supermarket to pick up something nice and bland for supper. So here’s those shoes:

Moderately cute, aren’t they? They’re fairly comfortable, they go click-click-click, which makes me feel brisk and capable, and they were only $3 at Target. Believe it or not, these are my dressiest dress shoes, as well as my go-to footwear when dragging nauseated children around town.

Next, I present the shoes I actually squealed about (in my head) when I found that they were my size. They cost ten whole dollars. For someone who generally shops at stores called things like “Ye Kingdom of Consign-a-lot,” these were a downright frivolous purchase.

Especially when I got home and remembered that I recently made another frivolous purchase: a bright green purse. To go with my bright red shoes. Fa la la la la!

Next: my comfortable, expensive sandals which do a good shoe’s job of making me forget that I’m wearing them: my trusty old non-deluxe Tevas.

Or Teva, because I can only find one.

These next ones are the shoes I wore on my recent one-day hiking spree, because I couldn’t find my other Teva:

Can’t you see how malevolent they are? I don’t know how they got into my house, but when I put them on, it looks like someone was angry at my feet. “Take that! Grrrrrrr, here’s some webbing with big, ugly stictching, and arrrrrr, here’s some rigid hunks of rubber. I’ll teach you to have ten little toes and flexible skin!” Worst blisters ever. Seriously, they even made my eight-year-old son avert his eyes, and he really, really likes gross stuff.

Here is another shoe of mine. I think you can see why it’s single:

I bet her partner never even took the time to see if she has a great personality. Poor dear. Now she’ll have to go join the shoe convent on the porch, where spinsters spend their lives praying for the soles of others.

And finally:

I guess these are shoes? I don’t know. Where did they come from, and how did they get so dirty?

My husband thinks I should also talk about my boots. He doesn’t mean the black Gloria Vanderbilt shoe-boots I bought with a gift certificate 12 years ago. They look something like this:

except they have crescent-shaped toenail holes in the tops, because I can never find socks, and they are shaped less like footware and more like a pair of venerable potholders. I like them because they are black. Also, there are two of them, which matches my feet.

But it turns out my husband meant something he laughingly referred to as my “work boots.” I don’t know what’s so damn funny about that. I can’t take a picture of them, because I put them in a bag marked “Salv Army,” and I have to leave them in the back of the car for a few years before I can take them out and wear them again.

But you know what? I have a problem here. I bought a pair of shoes. They are SO CUTE. They are the cutiest, wootiest shoes you ever saw. I wear them a lot, and they fit, they’re in season . . . I don’t know. For some reason, I guess I halfway expect people to burst into applause whenever I walk up in them. I mean, they have silver wingtip-style toe caps! But, at the same time, they’re heelless for that carefree spring in your step in the happy, happy springtime! But they have a nice big elastic band so they don’t fall off! They are the perfect shoe. Actually, they slide around a bit, but that is totally my fault, not the shoes’ fault. My fault.

Just look at these shoes!

No?

Aw hell, you wouldn’t understand.

So tell me: West and Wewaxation

My parents are semi-retired. They visit their grown children when they can, and try to combine these trips with very specialized iteneraries. For instance, they made a tour of exhibitions of the work of their favorite artist, Charles Burchfield

image source

(The title of this particular piece is “Sun Emerging,” but, like most of Burchfield’s work, it ought to be called “Damn!” or “Wowza!” or “Help!”)

And a few years ago, they visited Lost Cove, Tennessee, of Walker Percy fame. We also got a postcard from a full-scale reproduction of Moses’ tabernacle, which the Mennonites built in Lancaster, PA, for some reason.

My parents take pictures at various glitzy tourist traps:

and their photo albums on Facebook have titles like: “Fungus”; “Lichen”; “More lichen. We like lichen.” My mother’s description of one outing with my father was as follows:

What he didn’t mention was that I was scared for him because his sense of balance was off since the spinal cord tumor, car accidents, and several surgeries, and I didn’t think the narrow edges of cliffs and stone bridges with no handrails were a good place for him to be. I even had to bargain with him to get him to agree to use one of the tree branches I found for a walking stick. At age 66! You can’t tell a man anything. I kept thinking, between Hail Marys, “I’ll have to arrange to have his body shipped back home, and then drive back from Tennessee all by myself–and the car key was locked in the trunk!

Ahh, west and wewaxation at wast. I don’t know if this is how they pictured their retirement (or even whether they expected to have one at all).

My husband and I are anticipating something more like this

photo source

for our own retirement. There is also some talk of living in either a yurt or something made of adobe, but I forget why. I think we also somehow plan to live in Greece or the outskirts of Rome, and one of us is going to have to learn how to play the guitar finally, or at least the harmonica. It will sound good to us, despite our age and palsy, because we will be pretty drunk.

So tell me: what are your retirement plans? If you could do anything at all, I mean? Or, if you are already retired, is it working out the way you hoped?

7 Quick Takes: “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” Edition

Many mothers of big families are at a loss for words when strangers make personal comments about their family size. Other women are able to use their conspicuous presence in public as a chance to witness to the joy of this lifestyle. Still others see it as an opportunity to ditch one or two of the slower kids in the crowd.

No matter which description fits you, there will come a day when you are urging an unruly string of children down the narrow hall of the hospital, where you are late for an appointment to have the blood of several of them painfully tested for something you know perfectly well they don’t have. Some of them will be licking the walls, one will be wailing about losing her vending machine puppy in the parking lot, and two will merely be going silently boneless.

It is at moments like these when some sweaty bozo in an AC/DC T-shirt will appear, plaster himself comically to the wall to let you pass, and remark, “Haw haw haw, looks like someone don’t have a TV!”

(photo source)

So the following guide is for you, mom. If one of your damn wiener kids hasn’t shoved a fig newton into the printer, feel free to make a copy, laminate it, and keep it in your ludicrously enormous purse. It will help you respond to people who see your presence as a challenge, when really all you want to do is mail a letter, buy some diapers and few pregnancy tests, or pay the librarian for the books you ruined this week, and go home.

7 Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions About Your Big Family

–1–

Boy, you’ve got your hands full, don’t you?

Congratulations! As the ten billionth person to make this clever remark, you are a winner! As your prize, please accept this delicious baby.

–2–

Don’t you know what causes that?

Yes, it’s brought on by being in the presence of morons. Every time I leave the house, I feel the urge to rush home to my husband and, for the sake of future generations, try to outnumber people like you. Whoopee!

–3–

Are those all your kids?

Quiet, you fool, my husband’s listening!

–4–

How many kids do you have, anyway?

I dunno. [I don’t know if it qualifies as snappy, but it’s often true, and it shuts people up.]

–5–

You’re stopping now, right?

Of course! Lots of people have eight kids. Eight kids is nothing. Of course, our van is longer than most people’s driveways. We own two milch cows just to supplement breakfast. And with the money from our Additional Child Tax Credit, we bought a Learjet. That’s life with eight kids.

But to consider having nine kids? That would be cuh-razy.

–6–

[This next one is for kids who are members of big families. It’s a direct quote from lunch recess at Disnard Elementary School, and partially explains why no one liked me in sixth grade.]

Hey, huh huh huh, you have seven brothers and sisters? Boy, huh huh huh, your parents must really like to dooo it!

Yeah, boy, I guess that proves they had sex eight times. And you’re an only child, so I guess your parents just don’t love each other very much. Ha ha! Now, who wants to be my lunch buddy?

–7–

Don’t you have a TV?

If you think TV is better than sex, then you are doing it wrong.

————————————————————————————————

So long until Monday, folks! Don’t forget to check out Conversion Diary for links to everyone else’s Seven Quick Takes. And don’t forget the most basic rule of appearing in public with lots of children: it’s everyone else’s job to get out of your way.

Excuses, excuses

We just discovered a new family game! My 12-year-old daughter, who taught it to us, scornfully insists that it’s actually called “Excuses,” and not (sneer) “Excuses, Excuses,” but I think it’s funnier my way, and anyway, who is she? Does she have a blog? Oh, well, actually, she does. But we are good parents, and don’t let anyone look at it. Ha ha!

Anyway, we’ve been playing this new game in the evening after supper, when it’s too darn hot to be inside, but no one wants to fish the football out of the bushes. It’s good for ages 6 to adult, I would say, and it’s very easy to drop in and out of. It’s also entertaining to watch, if you can’t, won’t, or are too fat to play.

The basic set-up is this: one person is the boss, one person is the employee who is late for work, and one person is the co-worker. The boss faces the employee, and the co-worker stands behind the boss, so the employee can see him, but the boss cannot.

The boss barks at the employee, “Why were you late?” The employee starts to make his excuses — but he has to describe what the co-worker is miming. Remember, the boss can’t see him.

So the co-worker is marching, dancing, swatting imaginary flies, being strangled, fighting invisible gorillas, etc., and the employee is narrating it.

Then the boss, at any point he wants to, whips his head around to and yells at the co-worker, “What are you doing?” And the co-worker has to instantly come up with a plausible explanation for whatever he was caught doing. If he was acting out “killing a bear with my teeth,” for instance, he might say, “Oh, I was just eating one of these crullers. Thanks for the crullers, boss!”

If the boss likes the excuse, he says, “Okay,” and the game resumes. But if he doesn’t, he says, “You’re fired!” and the next person gets to be the co-worker.

Did I explain that right? It’s seriously a lot of fun, and I’m so happy to know it, because if we had to play Simon Says one more time, Simon was going to say–

Well, I gave it a whole hour and a half, and even Googled “go play in traffic,” but I didn’t get to the end of that joke. Sorry, folks. Refunds at the door.

7 Quick Takes: “Harder than it has to be” Edition

So, Jen from Conversion Diary designed this nice little 7 Quick Takes system for us bloggers. It bumps up your traffic, it automatically gives your post a semi-professional look, with the nifty graphic and all:

And above all, it’s easy. For once, you don’t have to come up with a unifying theme. You can just babble about seven random things that occur to you — seven orphaned ideas which never quite grew up into anything, but which you aren’t quite ready to discard. You can tell about a book you just read, or you can complain about the heat. You can put a picture of the gross thing that fell out of the car seat when you finally got around to adjusting the straps, once you finally stopped lying to yourself about how 18-month-old children are probably happily reminded of the womb when they’re folded in half like a sweaty empanada. And before you know it, your post is all done.

Easy, right? Just write seven things, quick. What could be simpler?

But that’s just too disorderly for me. Now, looking at my house, you’d never think, “Here at last is someone who loves order. Yes yes, this is someone who cannot bear chaos, and who labors long and hard to institute structure and harmony into her personal life.” Okay, so if you’re talking about my living room, then, no. I’m just happy when all four feet of the couch on resting on the floor simultaneously, or when the drips of unidentifiable goo are dry, and not still visibly oozing down the walls.

So that’s my house. But when it comes to writing, I’m like the chickens in Chicken Run: I’M ORGANIZED. I don’t feel right unless my writing has some kind of unifying theme (although I reckon I sometimes do a great job of keeping that theme a secret). So every Friday, I ruin a perfectly good opportunity to be random, and I choose a topic for my 7 Quick Takes. So far, I’ve chosen The Outdoors, Hope This Helps and Toys.

Well, Friday kind of snuck up on me this week. So today, just to give you a little window into Life with Meeeee (so you can join the Facebook group “A Million Strong to Let Simcha’s Husband Out of Purgatory Sooner”), I present:

7 Ideas That I Decided Weren’t Good Enough for 7 Quick Takes

–1–

7 Refreshing Summer Drinks

It would be easy to pick seven drinks I like: lime rickey, cheap beer, slightly more expensive beer with a lime in it, white russian, whiskey sour, gin and tonic, and another gin and tonic. But who cares? What would be interesting would be a list of seven things that are likely to happen if I have more than two margaritas, but my spiritual director and my probation officer both advised me against dwelling on that kind of thing.

–2–

7 Rules of Etiquette for the Adoration Chapel

Ehhh, this is just too sticky, especially since I haven’t been in over a year. Other than the time that wall-eyed crazy lady squatted herself down in front of the altar and started to rummage through the basket of prayer intentions, alternately shrugging, raising her eyebrows, and giggling as she read, and I told her to cut it out — I’m really out of my depth in this one. I think I could come up with seven things, but no one comes out looking good. Better leave it alone.

–3–

7 Stupid Things We Almost Named Our Children

This one hits the sweet spot for me, because I love making fun of things, but I wouldn’t feel bad, because it was my own past self that I would be mocking. But then I’m guaranteed to offend some readers who actually did go with “Beryl Cornelia Moselle,” and they have the patron saint to back it up. I try and minimize the in-huff-leaving that goes on around here, so this one is out.

–4–

7 Bugs That Temporarily Ruined My Life

I can, and have, gone on at length about how I’m the onnnnnnnly person in the world who’s had to do a bunch of extra laundry to get rid of fleas or lice or whatever. And then there was that one time we got a mysterious moth infestation, and had to throw out all our food right when we had a $17-a-week grocery budget for six people. There were so many moths in the living room, it looked like the tracking needed to be adjusted. (For my youthful friends, that’s a VCR reference. Ask your dad.) The low point was when I opened up a tiny bottle of cream of tartar, and found it thoroughly infested with larvae. Really? Really, moths — you had to eat my effing cream of tartar?

But this one is no good, because many of my readers live in terrifying, tropical lands with enormous, venemous, year-round bugs, the likes of which I never saw even in my worst nightmares. They will scoff at my little mishap with the scary old lady bug, and tearfully recount how their third and fourth children were both carried off in the flying, carnivorous earwig invasion of Ought-Three, and how insult was added to injury when said children’s funerals were interrupted by historically unprecedented swarms of acid-squirting butterflies who become enraged by the color black. So, that’s out.

–5–

I Hate My Hair

Can I just say that seven times?

No? Then on to . . .

–6–

7 Embarrassing Things I Have Called Poison Control About

It turns out that it’s not really a big deal if your stupid kid eats two raw pork chops, nine ounces of glitter, or, sigh, super glue. It is, on the other hand, kind of a problem if you have to call about these things all in the same day. At this point, before you get around to listing the other four toxic things your child also ate while you were busy checking your blog stats, I would recommend changing your name. Perhaps to “Mother of the Year.”

–7–

7 Ways to Get Rid of Old Palm Branches

Palm branches are from Palm Sunday, which was back in March. So why, if you got the palm branches four months ago, would you still be talking about– . . . ohhhh. Still hanging around, looking holy, neglected, and semi-blasphemous, aren’t they? And not only are they too brittle now to be woven into a lovely cross, or too scattered to be stored away for burning into ashes for Ash Wednesday, you haven’t done any of those things with any palm branches from previous years, either, have you? Whenever you move out of a house, you clean out everything except the palm branches, don’t you? When your van breaks down and has to be towed to the junk yard, you clear out all the CD’s and melted Jolly Ranchers and leaky pens, but you pretend to forget about all those sun-baked palm branches on the dashboard, don’t you? When you’re cleaning out under the couch and you find a palm branch on which someone has written “liht saber” in marker, you suddenly get all jesuitical and contrive an elaborate theory about blessed items losing their sacred significance once they no longer full resemble their original form, don’t you?

Maybe I should change this one to “7 Stupid Things You’re Going To Hell For.”

THE END

Well, have a nice weekend, everyone. I intend to do at least seven things this weekend, and the unifying theme will be gin.

Thursday Throwback: The Spillcock One

Today’s post was written about three years ago, when I was terribly pregnant and terribly hot. Thanks to Jen from Conversion Diary for asking for a rerun! It brings a tear to my eye to know that my poor scribblings are remembered, even if it’s only because I used the word “spillcock.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There Are Worse Things than Being Hot

When we were house hunting, we promised the kids that the one we bought would have a hose spigot. Or, as I learned today, a spill cock. It’s called a spill cock.I will now go back to calling it a hose spigot.So, big liars that we are, we got a house without a hose spigot.

The kids have gone about five years without a hose, which means no fun ever, no how. But a promise is a promise, so finally (after calling a plumber for an estimate to do it the right way) (eleventy million dollars) I figured out that you can use gravity and pressure and what not to siphon water out of the bathtub, through a hose, down the back stairs, and into a pool.

This ungratifying system even works, in a feeble way, with a water slide (and the poor kids don’t even realize the water is supposed to be gushing out in a fabulous, fun-tastic wave of SplashAction! What it does is limply burble a little, and they pretend to be puppy dogs, and line up to take turns licking it. I know, I know. This is why I don’t put my last name).

Anyway, the catch is that, in order to get the water flowing down hill through the hose, you have to get all the air out of it.

Yep, pregnant lady stands in the back yard, in full view of the constant line of bored truckers who barrel past our house . . . suckin’ on a hose.

I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I almost drowned only twice, when the water came through unexpectedly just when I was breathing in. (The kids thought it was hilarious, especially the retching part.) And I don’t believe in bacteria (oh, it’s this terribly dangerous stuff that’s absolutely everywhere, but it’s invisible, huh? Riiight), so that’s not a problem.

So today it’s 93 degrees out, and since I was up all night dreaming about bears (I love the third trimester) and I’m stupid-sleepy, we’re not driving anywhere, even to feel some air conditioning.

Why aren’t we in the pool?

Because I left the hose right where Mama Snake hatched forty million babies a few weeks ago.

Think about that, and then you start sucking on a hose.

Hallie Lord: “What’s wrong with you?”

Dear Readers,

Today, I am very grateful to Hallie Lord, who wrote today’s post. I would also like to point out the importance of proper punctuation in the title above. To clarify further: as far as I know, there is nothing wrong with Hallie Lord, other than the fact that she is pregnant and it is HOT.

Enjoy Hallie’s piece, check out her lovely and funny blog, Betty Beguiles, and stay tuned tomorrow for Thursday Throwback, in which I’m so lazy, I guest post for my own blog.

~~~~~~~~~~~

WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?

Jessie dropped lobster and knife and ran to him with frightened eyes.

“What’s the matter, Bob, are you ill?”

“Not at all, dear.”

“Then what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

Hearken, brethren. When She-who-has-a-right-to-ask interrogates you concerning a change she finds in your mood answer her thus: Tell her that you, in a sudden rage, have murdered your grandmother; tell her that you have robbed orphans and that remorse has stricken you; tell her your fortune is swept away; that you are beset by enemies, by bunions, by any kind of malevolent fate; but do not, if peace and happiness are worth as much as a grain of mustard seed to you—do not answer her “Nothing.”

-O. Henry, The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

Dear male readers of Simcha’s blog: I come in peace. I am not here to judge or condemn you. No, I merely hope to save you the inestimable grief that my poor husband experienced when he uttered his own seemingly harmless “Nothing.”

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Your girl says, “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” and your reply is always—and I do mean always—“Nothing.” Don’t get me wrong, I do know why you say that EVERY. TIME. It is because your thoughts at that moment have to do with some terrible, weighty issue, perhaps related to a feeling of rejection you are experiencing or with concerns you have over the way the war in Afghanistan is being handled. And because you boys love us girls so much you want to protect us, shield us from your inner pain. Of course you do, silly boys. Why else would you choose to respond with something as pithy and uninformative as “Nothing”? To avoid all of our helpful input? Of course not that.

Nevertheless, I feel compelled to alert you to the fact that the above situation does place you firmly between a rock and a hard place. Should you decide to gamble with a “Nothing”—rather than share the concerns of your heart and mind with your lady love—than three most unfortunate fates will most assuredly befall you.

First, she might just assume that you question her love and devotion. I know, I know: how could she reach such an extreme conclusion based on a single indefinite pronoun? Let me explain. You see, we women spend countless hours studying the ways of our beloveds. We have studied you the way Darwin studied tortoises on the Galapagos Islands, and we’ve been doing it ever since the first blooms of young love seized our hearts. We take great pride in our ability to know and love you (though, admittedly, we may not always understand you). We know when there is something wrong with you. Were you to imply that perhaps we might be mistaken and that there is actually “Nothing” wrong with you—why, that would essentially be telling us that we are not adequately devoted to you! Do you mean to suggest that we do not know you well enough to sense the slightest seismic shifts in your masculine demeanor? Really now!

Second, as O. Henry alluded to above, the female imagination is a thing of wonder. Indeed, were you to take his suggestion and tell us that you had murdered your grandmother it would pale in comparison to what we ourselves might conclude was truly bothering you. It would be better to just lie to us; otherwise, we will be forced to extrapolate. You agree, don’t you?

Finally, there is the very slightest chance (miniscule, really) that we may—in a moment of weakness—decide that you really are in fact consciously attempting to avoid all of our helpful input, as mentioned earlier. The incisive dialogue…the penetrating, emotionally charged analysis of even your most trivial thoughts…avoided? I don’t imagine I need to tell you the ways in which this would be a very, very bad thing, do I? Think of poor Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction—remember how saddened and betrayed she felt? You wouldn’t want that, would you? No, I didn’t think so.

So, do tell us: What is the matter with you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hallie Lord married her dashing husband, Dan, in the fall of 2001 (the same year, coincidentally, that she joyfully converted to the Catholic faith). They now happily reside in the Deep South with their two energetic boys and two very sassy girls. They are expecting their fifth child later this summer. In her *ample* spare time Hallie blogs at BettyBeguiles.com and FaithandFamilyLive.com.

Old Year Resolutions

Back around New Year’s Day, when people were making resolutions, many of the good ladies of the internet were sharing their plans for self-improvement. They all had long and laudable lists to accomplish, but they wanted to avoid that all-too-common problem with good intentions: losing focus, petering out, or just plain forgetting.

To avoid this pitfall, they planned to distill their finest aspirations into a single, pregnant word. They would post this word in a prominent place where they would see it often, and they would be encouraged and redirected throughout the day.

To this idea, Jen from Conversion Diary responded in a way that I could have done myself:

“Here’s the problem,” I told a friend. Ann Voskamp’s word is YES, Rachel Balducci andArwen Mosher are both doing JOY…I feel like holy people like that can do this sort of thing, but I’m too much of an overly analytical grouch for it.” I thought that if, say, I were going to try to be more joyful, I would need specific, measurable goals in that department, lest I end up just rolling my eyes at the “JOY!” sign posted on my refrigerator as I shuffle around joylessly.

She’s a better woman than I am. I’m pretty sure that the first time I glanced at “JOY!” on the refrigerator while crawling around with a wad of rags, trying to sop up the rapidly-congealing jello soup that someone forgot to tell me they spilled all over the floor, where they were, incidentally, storing their math books and their collection of unwashable fairy costumes, I wouldn’t be rolling my eyes — I’d be gnashing my teeth, and possibly actually biting someone. Yeah, I got yer JOY right here.

So, no, this plan wasn’t for me. (Jen, however, ultimately decided to go with “Fortitude,” which is a good, versatile word, and realistic.)

But why am I bringing this story up now? Because I recently sorted through a bunch of old papers, and in among the long division worksheets and Cub Scout permission slips, I found a homemade valentine.

It was from my eight-year-old daughter to my seven-year-old son, and in a very few words, it illustrated such love, such consideration, and such a profound understanding of her brother’s character and basic constitution, that I decided to make it my mid-year Word.

I hung it in a prominent place, and every time I pass by it, it gives my heart a lift. Even on the darkest day, I smile, and I remember anew what true love is all about.

7 Quick Takes: Toy With Me edition

Today for 7 Quick Takes, hosted by Jen Fulwiler at Conversion Diary, I’m sharing what we’ve learned from years of research in the field of toy-buying. If you want to do your own seven quick takes, add your link to the list at Jen’s website, and don’t forget to link back to Jen on your blog.

7 Quick Takes: Toy With Me edition

From the beginning of April to the middle of July, five of our eight kids have birthdays. I think we spend more money on spring and summer birthdays than we do on groceries for the whole year. Any rational person with eight children would try and scale down birthday expectations, right? And I know many of you will say, “Oh, we’re trying our best to raise our little Wyatt in a non-materialistic way, so for his birthday, we just put a soy candle in his organic kefir, and let him use the pillow that night. If he remembers to say ‘thank you’ for the kefir.”

I don’t know what to say. For some reason, it’s turned out that we’re trying to raise materialistic kids who expect to be treated like supreme galactic emperors on their birthdays (or, if their birthday falls on a day which is not convenient for a party, they expect that treatment on their actual birthday and on their party day).

Besides the cake, the candy, the party favors, the balloons and streamers, the games, the snacks, the craft, and the birthday throne, there are, of course, the presents. So I thought I would share with you seven presents that we really like (and which the kids seem to like, too!). Because I’m lazy, most of the links are to Amazon, but you can often find a better price if you hunt around a bit.

1. The glitter ball. It’s a bouncy ball filled with water and glitter. Everyone loves it. It’s beautiful, it’s low-tech and non-batterified, it’s satisfyingly heavy, and it bounces well. Use it as a prop in a play (the Princess and the Frog), use it as a way to soothe and mesmerize an overheated toddler, or just use it as, you know, a ball. It comes in different sizes, but I recommend the jumbo one. For all ages. About $11

2. Tribot. This one is the opposite of the glitter ball: it’s expensive and complicated and slightly obnoxious — but it’s also cute and appealing, and was pronounced the Christmas present that induced the most sibling jealousy, 2009. It’s a red, remote-controlled, interactive robot that has motion sensors, so it skirts around obstacles on the floor; and if it falls over, it yells, “Master! Master! Suddenly my floor has turned into a WALL!” It also has a funny alarm system, it lights up, it wiggles its eyebrows, it makes jokes — I don’t know, it’s just an appealing toy. Absolutely perfect for a seven-year-old boy, but the rest of the family likes it, too. Oh, and it has a fascinating wheels-within-wheels system of transport, so it is extremely maneuverable. About $40

3. Skwish. So many baby toys are exciting and attractive, but they are hard for the baby to grasp, or they roll or tumble away too easily. This one is super-easy to grasp, and it doesn’t get very far if the baby drops it. Just a nice, bright, pleasant toy with lots of possibilities. About $12

4. B. Toys FunKeys. Babies love car keys, but I guess they have lead or something in them? So you give them toy keys, instead, but babies can tell they’re just plastic. Plastic keys clatter, rather than jingle, and aren’t heavy and cold like real keys. So these particular toys keys are actually made of steel, without being sharp or dangerous, and our baby is crazy about them. They come attached to a holder with buttons for making car-related noises (mercifully muted in volume), plus a little light. They come in a slightly irritating “behold what a fabulously unique company we are” package, but that’s not so bad. About $10

5. Krazy Kar. We haven’t actually bought one of these for our kids — it’s $75! I had one when I was little, though, and I think I spent three entire summers inside this thing. You crank the wheels with hand pegs, and make it go wherever you want, including in circles (the wheels move independently, like oars on a rowboat). It’s hard to describe why it was so much fun — much more fun than a pedal car or a Big Wheel. I just remember feeling secret and powerful as I sat in the little seat between those two big, yellow wheels, and smelling that smell of plastic that’s been sitting in the sun, and feeling the static electricity crackle in my hair. It made a wonderful rumbling noise as it barreled across the grass.

6. Snorta! A non-board game with funny little animal figurines. Okay, so we lost the pieces and can’t play anymore, but it was fun while it lasted. You turn over cards, and have to rush to be the first one to make the animal noise of the other person’s animal. It’s a reasonably simple, entertaining game that isn’t too excruciating for adults (and it’s fairly easy to let younger kids be your “partner,” if they’re too little to hold their own, or if they’re the type who have slow reflexes and burst into tears when everyone else is faster. If.) About $18

7. Care Bears Magical Care-a-Lot Castle. This well-crafted, educational little wonderland

Ha ha, just kidding! Only one of our kids really got interested in the Care Bears, and I think the Halloween costume I made, at her insistence,

cured her of that infatuation. The rest of our kids had no trouble discerning that the whole Care Bear franchise is one of the most stunningly crappy aspects of modern day America, and should be taken out and shot.

And now I have to go and plan one more birthday, and then we will be off the hook until the end of September! My daughter, who will be turning three, has requested a “wonky tonky.” We think this means “walkie-talkie,” but we are not sure–she might actually want a wonky tonky. I hope I can find one on sale.

See you on Monday!

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