Books for Me, Books for You

It's been a reading summer for us, lots of afternoons curled up on the couch with the Bigs enjoying books out loud...at least until Bruiser starts to interrupt more than every other paragraph, which is when I throw in the towel and make them go play legos. As of last week, we've started back to school, but it didn't even put a dent in our read aloud time because--this is the joy of homeschooling. Also, I'm not going to lie, reading out loud is one of the few things that I really feel like I do well as a parent and teacher, so I'm doing my best to capitalize on that and hope it evens out my other deficiencies.

How my crazy kids do their first day of school picture.
The fact that Twinkles has a pen in her hand and is about to draw
on herself should've been a sign of things to come.

Some of the following books are suggestions. Some are reflections. And some are cautionary tales. You can determine which books belong in which categories.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis :: The kids and I had just started The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when we left Texas. We systematically read through the whole series, the kids picking their favorite characters as they went and adding lots of book references to our family lexicon of jokes. Finally, we blew threw The Last Battle in record time, the week before school started--thank you, Twinkle, for taking really excellent afternoon naps two days in a row. Hands down my favorite part of this whole experience? Seeing the kids' faces light up every time Aslan appeared in the story. May I model for them that same joy for Jesus, our real live Aslan.

Water to Wine by Brian Zahnd :: I bought this book in order to make use of the prayer liturgy he includes--which was just as soul encouraging as I thought it would be. The rest of the book was thought provoking, challenging, and prayer inducing. Do not read if you want someone who will agree with you on everything. Do read if you want your soul to stretch and your heart to be pointed back to Jesus while your mind is simultaneously challenged past the status quo.

Teaching from a Place of Rest by Sarah Mackenzie :: Earlier in the summer, I enjoyed Mackenzie's latest book The Read-Aloud Family. Then a new neighborhood/homeschool friend asked me if I'd be willing to "book club" through Teaching from a Place of Rest, and of course I said yes (our version of book clubbing--the only kind of clubbing I do--is walking around the block in the pitch black dark, talking as loudly as possible about our homeschooling perils in order to hopefully scare away the black bears. They should be scared by both the noise and the topic of conversation: if we can survive homeschooling, we can survive anything). I'm going slowly through the book, but it is giving me a lot of much needed encouragement as we tackle yet another year of home schooling, this time with four kids studying and one very attention hungry one year old doing her best to distract us. At this point, I would give it a highly recommend, but I promise to update the book blog if next chapter she suggests duct taping my kids to their chairs and playing Baby Einstein videos for them while I nap.

Water My Soul by Luci Shaw :: I'm not writing much about this now because this book deserves its own, personal, all-by-itself post, but Shaw's meditation on soul growth in connection with nature has made my early morning quiet so much richer. I try to squeeze in just a couple paragraphs a day after I read my Bible (and hopefully before the hordes descend upon me), and every time I come away with some small nugget of truth to hold onto throughout the day. Highly recommend. Side informational tidbit for you: Luci Shaw was one of Madeleine L'Engle's best friends.

The kids and I have been on an audiobook kick since July. Honestly, I'm kind of mad that it took me so long to jump on the audiobook band wagon. The Man tried to tell me, but I was so convinced that it wouldn't work for us that I didn't listen. How wrong I was. How much crow I have eaten.

Here's the Man graciously reading to Twinkle
instead of saying "I told you so."

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis :: What an incredible introduction to audiobooks this was.  The kids and I plowed through most of Bud, Not Buddy driving home from TN last month, and cheerfully ran errands for the next week in our attempt to finish it. The reading by James Avery was...amazing. He did all the voices better than I could've imagined possible--and my imagination is not one to be kept down. I'm not going to lie: the whole way through Bud, Not Buddy I kept waiting for something to happen that would turn me off to the book. But the something never came. Also, all the jazz made my heart happy. The story is about an orphan boy who escapes his foster home and goes looking for his father, but it's so much better than that makes it sound.

The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum :: Our next pick was The Wizard of Oz, and honestly, I really think audiobooks are saving us from a sense of frustration regarding the commute time here. Coming from San Antonio, I thought that all the people who warned us about commute time in our small city here were just complaining unnecessarily. But the truth is: it takes forever to get anywhere here, and I still can't really figure out why. But at least we had Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion to keep us company this month. We're watching the movie on Friday, and the kids are so excited, although I warned them that Dorothy's slippers are ruby red in the movie, not silver. As an insight into my children's souls though, yesterday I overheard the twins pretending to be the Wicked Witch of the West (Bee) and the winged monkeys (Bruiser--he is a whole pack of winged monkeys rolled into one).

The Little Man's solo chapter book reading is exploding right now too. Although I did bribe him to read something new the other day (one cannot continuously reread even Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia without eventually having one's mind turn to mush). The promise of two chocolate chips introduced him to:

A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears by Jules Feiffer :: Roger makes people laugh, not by being funny but just by being. Everything in Roger's life is hilarious--except for the fact that no one around him can stop laughing. Littles also could not stop laughing. I counted introducing him to this book as my parenting win for the year. Now I can rest on my laurels until 2019.

Mr Lemoncello's Library Series by Chris Grabenstein :: One of the joys of loving children's literature and having actual children of your very own is getting to read children's books with impunity and then introduce the ones that you really like to the kids that you really like. I blew threw the Mr Lemoncello's Library series and have now gotten Littles sucked into them (when he comes up for air in between Redwall books). In fact, I even got the Man's super old kindle working so that Littles could read the ones our library doesn't have but Army MWR Library does. Thank you, online library of a different military branch for being awesome. And for letting me bum off you forever and ever. And ever.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood :: Oh so quirky. Oh so fun. I'm three books in on this six book series and waiting for the sequels is killing me. I'm considering just buying all six of them for the kids to read (because they have managed to make learning fun as well as just being fun), but it bothers me that they don't come in a box set, which I realize is unbelievably petty. If you want to know what it would be like to be a fifteen year old prim, British governess to three children who were, presumably, raised by wolves, you too could enjoy these books. Personally, I'm enjoying them for all the wonderfully abstract sayings of Agatha Swanburne. This series is next on my list of books to bribe Littles to read.

Wonder by R. J. Palacio :: As for the other kids, they are reading a smattering of everything (we are still finishing up Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes) but our main enjoyment right now has been Palacio's Wonder. It's my second time reading it, but it's still making my heart so happy. Also, it's making it cry a little, but the kids just think I'm doing a really good job reading all the voices and don't get that I'm actually choked up.

Last but not least, a few words on board books (let us not forget Twinkle in all these Big People Books).

Where's Spot? by Eric Hill :: Seriously, why is this book even a thing? I get that it's super fun to open all the little flaps (or, in Bruiser's case, to rip off all the little flaps with impunity--Twinkle's copy was a post-twin gift), but why do we feel it necessary to solidify in our one year old's vocabulary the word, "No"? Couldn't Eric Hill have worked in a different word? Twinkle already knows how to express her "no"s perfectly well without his help. Thanks, but no thanks, Eric Hill.

Goodnight, Moon by Margaret Wise Brown :: Does it bother anyone else that the bowl full of mush is just going to sit there all night, not getting eaten, completely wasted, and congealing to the bowl? It will be a concrete block of mush by morning. Good luck cleaning that out. I have to know: does this bother anyone else? Anyone?!

At any rate, these are just a few of our latest reads because books are happiness, and happiness should be shared. Consider this my "Just Because I Love You" book blog. Because I do. Also, I realize that the littlest Friz was unfairly represented in this blog, but it was not purposeful. She's just the only one who tolerates photo shoots right now. It's not because she's cuter than the rest of them or I love her more. In fact, she was neither cuter nor more lovable when she opened a new box of raisins this morning while I was in the middle of the twins' reading lesson and dumped half of them onto the carpet which badly needed to be vacuumed thereby covering aforementioned raisins with a thick coating of pet fur. She also wasn't cute nor terribly lovable when she dumped water in the play dough that I was using to keep the twins happy so I could finish Spanish with the Boys. But you know, that's neither here nor there. Books are happy! That's the take away. Happy Wednesday-almost-Thursday!

Summer Meet Ups

We start school this week, which means that our summer days of frantically trying to get settled in but still be as lazy as possible are now drawing to a close. Sure, we smacked a couple of weeks of school in there post move, but most of it has been beach trips and unpacking and hanging pictures and bopping in to see the Man at work while simultaneously scarring the entire squadron with the sight of our children. It's fun for the whole family! But the highlight of the summer, at least for me, has been meeting up with a whole truck load of old friends.

A friend from college and her son got to play with the clan at a splash pad while we were in TN (and they drove 2 hours in order to do so). I did a last minute drop in on some friends from our time in Oklahoma, who now live in Alabama and graciously fed us lunch before we finished our drive home. I had a friend from Monterey who moved to Seattle come down for a beach day with our kids. On Saturday, we got to rendezvous with a friend from my time in Virginia who now lives in the Netherlands with her family. And tomorrow a friend from childhood is stopping for the night as her family moves to South Carolina. Now if only someone from my time in DC would decide to swing by, my summer of old friends would be complete. I'm not naming names, but you should know that our guest bed is super comfy. And the beach is seriously a two minute walk from the house. Also, if you come after Wednesday you get to help homeschool the kids. And you know you desperately want to do that.

And I just realized that I'm wearing the same shirt
on three out of four of those days...

I have been thinking of God's goodness in letting some of these friendships continue. Some of these friends I had not seen in years. Some of these friends I hadn't kept up with terribly well. These friends have changed jobs, moved, married, had kids, suffered terrible griefs... We'd missed major life events, but still, for just an hour or two we got to enjoy each other, listen to each other, hug one another. And I was grateful. I am grateful.

It is hard to keep up with friends the way that I would like. We have moved (on average) every two years over the last decade. That means that every two years, I am making new friends who I will then want to keep up with the next time we move (while still making more new friends). Sometimes this is a logistical challenge. Often, people that I love and enjoy slip through the cracks. But we have grace for each other, and we take the moments (and the facebook messages) when we can get them.

I had a friend message me only last week, just to tell me that she had been thinking of me and she was trying to be more intentional in her relationships so she messaged when she had a moment. We haven't seen each other in a decade. But I so love that she did that. I'm hoping to squeeze in a phone call to her this week in between finalizing homeschool plans and changing six sets of sheets, not because I have to but because if I can, I want to. And no, we probably will not start weekly phone dates but I will love that fifteen minute phone call just like I loved that five sentence "I'm thinking of you" note.

We all get it: we are busy. No matter how much I pare down and say no to, I think the nature of adulting is busyness. But there are things that take so little time and effort. I want to be the friend who sends that text message to say, "You were on my mind today." I want to be the kind of person who says, "I'm driving through your town today; want to meet up?" I want to pick up the phone and listen well. To the best of my ability. And I am so grateful for the friends who have grace for me when my best ability falls short.