Aaron's Preschool: Snowmen at Work

The first time I heard Snowmen at Work, I knew it would be the perfect lead-in to a preschool lesson all about various occupations and careers. So even though it is not a Five in a Row book (which is the curriculum we're using for Aaron's little preschool), when it was my turn to teach last week, I pulled together a group of activities that went together with this fun and educational book.

The book features a vast array of occupations, all demonstrated by snowmen: snow removal crews, dentist, mechanic, grocer, pet store owner, baker, teacher, magician, firefighter, librarian, pizza delivery guy, factory worker, big rig driver, and president of the United States.You can tell this list runs the gamut of possibilities. I chose to focus on five: artist, pet store owner (and veterinarian), baker, grocer, and teacher.

After saying the pledge of allegiance, singing a song about the days of the week, and reading the story, we talked about being an artist. Although artist is not specifically mentioned in the book, it seemed like a fairly natural occupation to talk about since the illustrations in this book are amazing, the result of the artist's talent and hard work.

So to learn more about artists, we all became artists.  A couple months ago, I saw this darling snowman art project, and ever since, I have been wanting to do it with my kids. This was the perfect time.

Ahead of time, I lightly outlined snowmen on blue circles of paper. The idea was that the kids would fill in the outline with little painted dots using a Q-tip as a paint brush.

Of course several of them didn't do that. Creative expression, right? Aaron didn't like the dots, so he used the Q-tip as an actual brush to fill in everything. Another little boy chose to focus on one small area in the middle of the snowman and mix all the colors together. Some of them did try the dot method, but in the end, I was surprised by how different each one turned out.

Next came the career of pet store owner.

I love it when imaginative play can intersect with learning, so I decided to set up a pretend pet store. I can't even tell you how fun this was to put together. I felt like I was seven again.

I made a sign to go on the door. The "closed" part could flip around to say "open," and you'd be surprised with how much the kids loved closing up shop for the day and then reopening it.

I had various animals in cages waiting to be "purchased": puppy, frog, fish, parrot, and a gigantic duck. (Missy, if you are reading this, I hope you appreciate Mr. Duck's preschool debut!)

 

Before I took them downstairs to the pet store, we had a little lesson about money. We learned what pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters look like and how much each one is worth. Then I gave each of them a few of each coin so they could "buy" themselves a pet.

 

We talked about what responsibilities a pet store owner might have (cleaning the animals, feeding them, running the cash register--we obviously didn't dive into the business aspect of owning a store). We also talked about why a veterinarian is important and what his/her responsibilities might be. Then the children decided who wanted to be the pet store owner and who wanted to be the veterinarian and who were going to be the customers.

At first, I guided their play just a little bit, but after most of them had had a turn purchasing something, I went upstairs to set out the snack while they continued to trade roles and play. This was probably the highlight of the morning. When Aaron was going to bed that night, he asked me not to take down the pet store. And I said, "Don't worry. I'll keep it up until you get tired of it" to which he responded, "I don't think that will ever happen."

Then I called them up for a snack where we learned about being a baker.

We didn't actually bake anything, but I had them assemble these snowmen from bread, cheese, pretzels, raisins, carrots, strips of lunch meat, and cottage cheese. I found the idea for this at Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons.

We talked about how part of being a baker (or cook) (or chef) is doing fun and imaginative things with food.

Again, I was delighted (and amused) to see the kids' personalities come through. This one was done by one of the little girls, and it matched the original pretty closely:

And this one was done by a little boy:

I'm pretty sure he was not trying to create a snowman. Maybe a fortress with guns?

At any rate, after their creations were made, they loved devouring them.

Next, we talked about the occupation of grocer.

I wanted to teach the kids a little bit about heavy and light objects. A grocery store is full of all different kinds of food, each with its own weight. Sometimes customers will weigh their produce; any packaged items are labeled with their weight; and when you check out, the cashier weighs the fruits and vegetables. So see? A lot of weighing goes on in the grocery store.

I had Mike construct a little scale for me out of a couple of dowels, string and plastic cups. 

The idea was that you'd put the object that needed weighing in one of the cups and then fill up the other side with pony beads until the two cups were once again even. The beads were our unit of measure, so the pink fish pictured above weighed 8 beads.

I chose six small items to be weighed: a foam fish, a penny, a marble, a monster, a bouncy ball, and a train. Mike used his artistic talent and drew up a chart which I then made copies of. (If you can't already tell, Mike is a good one to have around. He gets roped into many of my planning sessions.)

I handed out a chart to each child, and we looked at the first item. The kids all made a guess as to how much that item weighed. Then we started dropping in the pony beads and counting. 

Then they wrote in the actual number and compared their guess with the correct answer.

This was a fun activity, but if I did it again, I'd probably do it differently. First of all, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was kind of an advanced concept, especially for the children in the group who haven't turned four. So I would have given them fewer items to weigh, and I also would have made sure that whatever I used to balance the item didn't exceed twenty. For example, you can see that the bouncy ball actually weighed 72 pony beads. That was just too high of a number for the kids to really think of by themselves. When we got up to weighing the train, I did switch over to using pennies, but I think I should have done that sooner.

The last occupation we focused on was that of a teacher. We talked about how when you're in school, you get to learn,among other things, how to read and write. 

At the beginning of the morning when I was reading the story to the children, one of the girls noticed that the text in the story rhymed. So before I introduced this activity, I reminded them about the rhyming words they heard in the story and told them that knowing how to rhyme helps us learn how to read.

Before getting into the game, I went around the room and said, "Who's name rhymes with Lemmy?" And the kids shouted, "Emmy!" I did this with each child, most of the time using completely made up words to rhyme with their names, and I think it really helped them hear what it sounds like when a word rhymes.

For the game, I laminated simple words: hat, mat, cat, etc. (I was more than a little excited to use my brand new laminator that I got for Christmas. It was so awesome to be able to do this at 10:00 at night and not have to make a special trip to the copy shop).

Anyway, since most of the children can't read, I also laminated a corresponding picture to go with each word. Then I (I mean, Mike, who was helping me) glued both the word and the picture to a craft stick.

I took four jars and attached one of the words from each word family to the front of each jar.

To play, I handed each child one stick. Then they came up one at the time, and I would say something like, "Your word is 'ran.'" Some of them would know right away where their word went. Others needed a little clue, so I would say, "Do you think 'ran' sounds more like 'tan'  or 'took'?" After they'd all had a chance to place their sticks, I passed out a new one to each person and we played again. I got the idea for this game at No Time For Flashcards (one of my very favorite preschool websites).

This was such a fun lesson to put together. I love finding and thinking of ways to make learning fun.

P.S. And a special shout-out to my sister-in-law, Kirsten, who came to my house for the morning and helped with crowd control and also watched Bradley.

I shared this post at The Children's Bookshelf, the Kid Lit Blog Hop, and the Kid's Co-op. 

Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach

December was a hard month for me to stay caught up with book reviews (okay, it was a hard month for me to stay caught up with anything), and so I consequently got very behind. But when January came, I vowed to myself that I would just stay current with the books I was then reading, and I would catch up with the ones that I missed as I had time. So that is why, two months later, I'm finally writing about Dinner: A Love Story.

Fifteen years ago (that would be in 1998), Jenny Rosenstrach  began keeping a daily log of what she and her family ate for dinner. (Think of it as the recently  popular line-a-day journals but with food.) At first she did it, in part, so that the meal would last beyond the thirty minutes it took to consume it. The notebook made it possible for her to have a permanent, tangible reminder of what they ate and the memories that went with it. But as the years went by, it also became a record and reminder of family trends, special events, and happy memories. The longer she kept it, the more she realized how invaluable it is to carve out time every night for a sit-down family dinner.

I did not read this book because I needed convincing that family dinner is a good thing. Growing up, it was a rare night when all ten (yes, ten!) of us weren't gathered around the table, and that time together led to some of the best one-minute talks, funniest jokes, and most interesting conversations you ever did hear. But while I didn't need convincing, my resolve maybe needed a little boost. Right now with three young boys, mealtimes have become more of a time to clean up spills, make convincing arguments for why broccoli is tasty, and wipe messy faces than for holding enlightened conversation (though we do try). And incidentally, even Rosenstrach, with all her evidence, says that family dinner may be more enjoyable if you feed the under 3 crowd before the rest of the family. I won't say I haven't been tempted.

The thing I really loved about this book is that it was a perfectly blend between memoir and cookbook.  I actually read the entire thing straight through, including all the recipes. I felt like the recipes really became a part of the plot, and they needed to be read and, forgive the pun, savored along with the other stories. She would usually group three or four recipes together--recipes that had to do with whatever she was just talking about, be it kid-friendly dinners, easy dishes for entertaining, or lip-smacking barbecue.

The recipes were written in a laid-back, easy going way: add "a handful" of this or "a few glugs" of that. Also, she was so realistic--it's obvious that she's a mom and that she gets what it's like to have screaming/wailing children at 5:30pm. For example, for her pizza sauce recipe, she gives the instructions: "Simmer for 30 minutes, but 20 minutes is fine, too, if the kids are losing it." Yes, she knows what it's like.

Since finishing this book, I have not started a food journal (surprising, I know, since I'm passionate about journaling). I guess I just feel like we eat so simply that it wouldn't provide any interesting glimpses into our lives, unless of course, "boring" is the new "interesting." And yet, I'm sure there have been trends in our eating--like when we ate about a million fresh pineapples when I was trying to induce labor with Aaron or when we made fruit smoothies practically every evening. I'm sure Rosenstrach benefited from her daily log while writing this book because she was able to make such statements as, "...between January 1997 and October 1999, I don't think [Andy] ever passed up a recipe that called for cilantro." The food journal helped her remember the "cilantro stage." Also, have you noticed how sometimes you'll make a recipe almost weekly, and then one day, you'll just forget about it entirely? Tracking dinners would make sure some of your favorite dishes didn't accidentally fall out of use.

Not related to food per se but on a more personal note, when Rosenstrach talked about being the "Wednesday Wife" because she got to stay home on that day and do all of the domestic things she was longing to do, I was struck by the balance every woman has to strike between what she wants/needs and what her family wants/needs. For her, even though a part of her wanted to be with her daughters during the day, she also craved the satisfaction that having a job outside the home brought her. Interestingly enough though, eventually she did decide to work from home (which, among other things, is when she started her website). In many situations, I think it is possible to get what you want; the hard part is deciding what you really want.

For all that I really liked about this book, there was one thing that annoyed me more and more the farther in I got, and it was all her references to how much she loved her daily gin and tonic. As just one example: When they were on vacation, her husband, Andy, liked to plan everything out to the minute, including, "...at six o'clock I need to be right there on that deck drinking my gin and tonic." And Rosenstrach followed with, "Now there was a deadline I could get excited about!" Now multiply that example times 20, and you'll get what I mean.

And while I'm nit-picking, I guess I'll also mention the photographs. I usually love photographs in books, and I loved most of them in this one, but there were a couple that were extremely awkward (one where's she standing by a grill staring and smiling at nothing and another that was a closeup of her hands while she's chopping vegetables). I'm sure selecting photos for a book like this is a heavily debated process, so I'd like to know the reasons for why some of the awkward ones made the cut. (Or were they only awkward to me?)

And now, the question I'm sure you've all been asking: Have you tried any of the recipes? Although, if you know me very well, then the question you should really be asking is, Has Mike tried any of the recipes? Regardless of which one you asked, the answer is yes, and they've all been successes.

This recipe for black bean burritos is my favorite so far. When I took my first bite, it literally stopped me cold and all I could say was, Wow. I had no idea onions could taste like that.
 
Black Bean Burritos

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for frying
1 garlic clove, minced
3 green onions, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 jalapeno pepper, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained
Kernels from 1 ear fresh corn or 1/2 cup frozen
6 8-inch tortillas
2 large handfuls grated cheddar cheese
Handful finely chopped cilantro
Toppings: sour cream, salsa, lime wedges

Quick-pickle your onions: Bring vinegar, sugar, 2 cups of water, and salt to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the onion and simmer, uncovered, about 3 minutes. Drain.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add the garlic, green onions, cumin, jalapeno pepper, and salt and pepper and cook, stirring, about 1 minute. Stir in the beans, mashing them with a fork. Add another 1/3 cup water and cook, stirring until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes. Toss in corn and remove from the heat.

Spread the bean filling across the middle of each tortilla, leaving some space at both ends.

Sprinkle each tortilla with cheese, your now quick-pickled onions, and a little cilantro. Fold the ends of the tortillas over the filling, enclosing filling tightly. Heat more oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 burritos at a time, seam side down, and fry until lightly browned on the underside, about 2 minutes. Turn over and fry until golden, another 2 minutes. Repeat with remaining burritos and serve with desired toppings.

You definitely could get this book and use it just like a cookbook, but I'd highly discourage that. You'd miss out on so much of what makes this book so interesting.

Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

I think I've made it pretty clear how much I loved The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. But in case you've somehow missed it, here it is plain and obvious: I love that book. It was one of my favorite books of 2012, I think about some aspect of it almost daily (not kidding), and I feel like it really did empower me to be ME. So it should come as no surprise that I absolutely had to read Happier at Home, a sequel of sorts that came out last September. Of course I did. The alternative (that would be not reading it) wasn't even considered.

And if it was possible, I was even more excited starting this one than when I started The Happiness Project. Partly because I knew what a treat I was in for, but also because her focus with this project was being happier at home, which, since I'm a stay-at-home mom, is where I spend the majority of my day.

Gretchen's first project lasted a full year and went from January through December. This one followed the school year and began in September and ended in May. She followed the same format as the first project, where she selected a theme, or focus, for each month (marriage, parenthood, neighborhood, etc.) and then outlined specific goals ("give gold stars," "underreact to a problem," "be a tourist without leaving home," etc.).

I think one reason I love these books so much is that I feel a certain kinship with Gretchen (which is why I can't seem to refer to her by just her last name). Maybe if we met in real life, we would find we wouldn't have anything in common, but more likely, I suspect we'd have a lot in common, but I'd just be so far her inferior that I wouldn't be able to carry on an intelligent conversation with her. At any rate, this book probably would not resonate so deeply with me except that her goals and interests and fears and weaknesses so closely match mine that reading about them is far more interesting to me than it would be if I were reading about someone who decided to increase their happiness by traveling extensively or getting a makeover or planning elaborate parties.

I'm not going to go through and list all the ways I think Gretchen and I are similar--that would not only be boring but also look extremely pretentious. But I will just mention one because it surprised me and also made me feel not so...weird. In October, Gretchen's focus is "marriage," and one of the ways she decides to improve her marriage is by taking driving lessons (so she can share this responsibility with her husband). Although she knows how to drive (and in the past, drove daily in such big cities as Kansas City and Washington D.C.), ever since moving to New York City, she has let her husband handle all of the driving. Not only is she a little anxious and scared to drive, she just doesn't like it. Oh, how I can relate! I have never liked driving and basically only got my license when I was 18 so I'd have some form of ID before going to college. I got away without driving for several years, but after having Aaron, I knew I had to do something about my fear; Mike couldn't chauffeur me around to every playdate, doctor's appointment, and shopping venture. I forced myself to get in the car, and now, several years later, driving doesn't scare me half to death (although I still don't like underground parking or freeway interchanges), but, like Gretchen, I still don't like it. In the book, she comes to accept that driving will never be something she loves, and I don't think I'll ever love it either, but I've definitely come to a point that I'm okay with it. (Yes, I did just compare New York City driving to Salt Lake City driving, but give me a break.)

As I mentioned in my first review, for all the ways I feel my personality is similar to Gretchen Rubin's, we differ in one (pretty important) way: Where she is not religious really at all, my religion is a very important part of my life and, indeed, how I define myself. In fact, who I am is so completely entwined with my relationship with my Heavenly Father that I don't know who I even would be if I took away that part of my life. So if anything is lacking from this book for me, it is the spiritual side of it (which is why I loved reading about Melanie's happiness project because it's everything Gretchen's project is but with the spiritual dimension added).

I wanted to mention just a few of Gretchen's goals that really impacted me personally:

"Make the positive argument" was one of Gretchen's goals in October when she decided to focus on her marriage. She noticed that so often when she got annoyed with her husband, it triggered other annoyances. I've noticed this in my own life as well. Sometimes I think, "Mike forgot to take out the trash," and that leads to, "He also didn't pick up his clothes in the bathroom," and that is invariably followed by, "He left the bed unmade, too, even though he was the last one up." Gretchen says that people can usually take either side of an argument and make a good case for it and that flipping our point of view can do wonders to fix the problem. So for example, if I'm thinking, "Mike is not a helpful person because of this, this, and this," I can just as easily say, "Mike is a helpful person because of that, that, and that." This is something so small and simple, but you wouldn't believe the way it instantly changes the way I feel about someone or something.

In January, Gretchen's focus was time, and one of her goals was to "suffer for fifteen minutes," which basically boiled down to forcing herself to spend fifteen minutes a day on something she had been putting off and didn't want to do. I always feel so much happier when I get rid of those little nagging tasks, but I like the idea of only spending fifteen minutes a day on it because then I'm not worried I'm going to be toiling away for hours on something that's not fun.

I loved her idea in March (focus: family) to "follow a threshold ritual," which means that anytime she comes home, she thinks this thought: "How happy I am, how grateful I am, to be home." I really like the idea of building happiness in your life just by implementing little rituals that force you to remember what you're grateful for. It reminds me of my grandma who told me that anytime I saw beautiful clouds, I should think of her, and to this day, even though she died more than ten years ago, whenever I see beautiful, fluffy white clouds, I can instantly see her face and hear her voice.

I have to say I chuckled about her goal to perform "nonrandom acts of kindness." She said that while random acts of kindness bring happiness to the giver, the emotion they usually arouse in the receiver is one of suspicion. I totally agree! And I also think that even when I don't react suspiciously to a random gift, I'm usually happier when I know who it actually was who was thinking about me.

Some reviews have mentioned that this book was too similar to The Happiness Project. I agree that even though the goals are different, a lot of the information is the same (the references to her commandments, Secrets of Adulthood, and Splendid Truths, as well as some of her research and frustrations with her own shortcomings). However, this repetition didn't bother me a bit. In fact, I was very grateful she did repeat as much as she did. I had been debating rereading The Happiness Project but instead I got to read a new book that still had all of the ideas I loved and wanted to be reminded of plus some new things to hold my attention.

As much as I have loved Gretchen's books, I have to admit, I haven't loved her website. I've looked at it a few times, but honestly, it doesn't feel like it's written by the same person. The ideas are all the same, but I don't feel the same passion or originality underneath. I can't explain it, and the only reason I'm bringing it up here is just in case any of you have looked at her website and decided based on that, that you probably wouldn't like the book. I just don't think you can compare the two.

Even though I have gushed about her work several times, I do realize that her books aren't for everyone, particularly I think they might not be helpful if you've been through an especially tragic trial, like losing a loved one or dealing with a life-threatening illness. I could be wrong, but it seems like in such a case, some of her goals and commentary might just seem a little superficial and naive. I hope I'm not dissuading you from reading it--I just wanted to add that caveat and also say that you won't hurt my feelings if you don't love it because I can totally see how someone might not.

And now, just when you thought I might not ever be quiet, guess what? I'm almost done. Towards the end of the book, Gretchen makes this statement, and I think it captures one of the reasons why I am so inspired by her happiness projects: "I do best what comes naturally. When I pursue a goal that's right for me, my progress comes quickly and easily; when I pursue a goal that's wrong for me, my progress feels blocked. Now I try not to fight that sense of paralysis, but rather see it as a helpful clue to self-knowledge." Lately I've been more willing to embrace the real me and also strive for the me I want to become.

The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program by Stanley D. Frank

For as long as we have been married, Mike and I have been avid fans of financial guru and radio show host, Dave Ramsey. We love him for his plain talk, his ridiculously sensible ideas, and his relentless tirade against debt. If we are driving somewhere after 7:00 some evening, we almost always turn on Dave to catch a few of his conversations with people who are woefully in debt.

Occasionally, he will talk to someone who is thousands of dollars in debt but who only makes $20,000-$30,000 a year, which means that the climb out of debt will be a slow, difficult one. In those cases, Dave will usually tell them to, first, stop wasting money, but also, increase their income, whether it's by adding another job (or two) or looking for a different, higher paying job (or occasionally, going back to school, although he generally discourages this if it's going to add a great deal more to their already suffocating debt).

Believe it or not, in spite of the financial introduction, I am going to bring this conversation around to books. As you know, even though I read a great deal, I am extremely slow. For the last few years, I have been reading an average of 52 books a year. I have so many books I want to read that I just keep thinking about how nice it would be if I could read closer to 100 books per year (or even more!). The problem is, I am already trying to use all my spare minutes to read: I read while blow drying my hair, brushing my teeth, putting Bradley to bed, washing the dishes (audio book), riding in the car, etc. In other words, and to tie the first two paragraphs into this one, I have maxed out my available income. I need to make more money, but obviously, I can't add more hours to the day (though I so wish I could!). So the only other option is to read faster.

And that is why I checked out, The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program. Such a nerdy title, I know. But, honestly, what would have sounded better? Seven Days to a Speedier You? Find Your Inner Speed Reader? Break the Subvocal Barrier in Just Seven Days? I'm sorry, speed reading is just nerdy, no matter how you phrase it.

And hold onto your seats because it's only going to get nerdier (and I'll now try to stop using that word).

I probably would have never checked out this book on my own because, well, because it sounds...like that one word I said I wouldn't say again.  But my brother was taking a "surviving college reading" class at BYU, and they used this book as part of the course, so I figured there would at least be something valuable in it. And there was.

Born in 1909, Evelyn Wood was the first person to really analyze and study what made fast readers fast. She devised a number of hand gestures and tests to help people increase their reading speeds and turned all her findings and methods into a seminar called Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Dynamics. Stanley D. Frank, who wrote this book, took her methods and taught them all over the country.

Towards the beginning of the book, you are asked to take an initial speed reading test. (As a side note, one thing that I appreciated is that these reading tests just used the text of the book, so you didn't have to read about something random like turtles on the coast of Florida.) The average person reads 250 words per minute. During that first test, I clocked in at 230 wpm. I was not at all surprised. I already knew I was slow.

Then he gives you the most basic of techniques: underlining the lines as you read them. After practicing this for a few pages, you take another test. This time, my speed was 306 wpm. It has actually been kind of amazing to employ this technique because I can tell that I instantly start reading faster as soon as I begin moving my finger across the page, and as soon as I stop, I slow back down (which, incidentally, is very frustrating).

There are two types of reading: subsonic (or subvocal) and super sonic. Subsonic reading is horizontal, moving across the page left to right, line by line. It's also sometimes referred to as subvocal because you are theoretically reading slow enough that you're "saying" the word in your head. Subsonic reading caps out at about 900 wpm. Super sonic reading is vertical, where your eyes move down the page in one fluid sweep. It's very visual--you can take in large groups of words at one time. Super sonic readers can read anywhere from 1200-10,000+ wpm (crazy to think about, I know). (The 900-1200 wpm range is a dark area you don't want to be in--basically your brain can't decide if you're reading linearly or vertically, and it just doesn't work).

I, myself, have very realistic goals: By March, I'd like to be reading at 600 wpm. That's more than twice as fast as I was reading at the beginning of the year, which means that a book that normally takes me a week to read would only take me three or four days. I actually have no desire to break the subvocal barrier. At 600 wpm, reading will essentially still be the same experience for me, just a little faster. But if you begin reading vertically, it's completely different. I want to read slow enough that I can still savor words and phrases and spend actual time living in the book. If you read at 5,000-6,000 wpm, the book is essentially over before you've had time to immerse yourself in the plot and characters. (Here I am, acting like I even could read 5,000-6,000 wpm; I'm pretty sure my personality would make it impossible for me to ever get that fast.)

I'm sure a lot of you speed readers out there don't even have to think about going fast. You just go. But for me, I'm finding that I really have to concentrate on it. If I devote a chunk of time and use the underlining or S motion techniques, I can go fast(er), but I have to consciously be trying. Hopefully, the more I work at it, the faster I'll become. The good news it, I haven't noticed my comprehension going down, which was one of the main things I was worried about.

And finally, I have to tell you that this book made me laugh out loud in several places, and I had to go back and read those sections to Mike because I just found them so funny. These sections weren't supposed to be funny, but they were, in part because the author is just a little too serious in some places, but also because it was written in 1990, so some of it is really dated. For your reading pleasure, here are a few of my favorites:

• "...you will do well to write down a brief list of the required materials for a study session before starting. Then, when these things are assembled in plain sight, you can proceed with the assurance that you have at hand all the basic items necessary to do your best work."
• "At the end of each line, lift your fingers one-fourth to one-half inch above the page." (See what I mean by the need for practice? I'm still raising my hand five-eighths of an inch off the page. Totally unacceptable.)
• "Choose a chair that's comfortable but upright." 
• "To break in a book, place it on your desk or another flat surface so that it rests on its spine, on the binding. Then open both the front and back covers slowly, until they rest flat on the table...Allow a few pages from each side of the book to flop down toward the desk, and run your thumb or a finger down the inner margin, against the inner binding, to flatten the pages out..." (and this explanation keeps going and going and going...).
• "The first thing you should do to become an efficient page-turner is assume an active attitude." (That one gets me every time.)
• "Finally, he began stapling the papers to one another in their appropriate sequence, with the top of each attached to the bottom of the one preceding. (Clear tape would have done just as well.)" (Clear tape! I never would have thought of that! And I'm so glad to know clear tape meets with the approval of Evelyn Wood's standard of excellence.)
• "As you already know if you have one, a word processor can be an invaluable tool when you begin to write. On most of these computers you can move text about, make inserts and deletions freely, and type more quickly with such advantages as the 'wrap-around' feature, which eliminates the need to return the typewrite carriage." (We've come a long way since 1990.)

Sorry, I'll stop now. There were just so many I wanted to share!

If nothing else, this book empowered me to take my slow reading into my own hands and do something about it. It was kind of one of those things where I recognized it as something I wanted to improve, but I had no idea how to do it. Now I have some tools and also some motivation.

I'm curious if any of you have consciously increased your reading speed and how you've done it? Are there any other books out there that address this topic and are a little less dated?

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

Time and again, I find myself drawn to books I have fond childhood memories of but other than that, can't remember a thing about them. Such is the case with Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. I can't see the cover without instantly being back on my parents' bed, reading by the glow of the reading lights that were attached to the top of their headboard. I know my mom also read these books aloud but my most vivid memories are of me re-reading them by myself.

Lucky for me, now when I have a desire to stroll down memory lane, I drag my kids along with me.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is the ideal grandma...times ten. Although she never had any children of her own (and therefore, not any real grandchildren either), she has loved and been loved by hundreds of neighborhood kids over the years. She lets them dig up buried treasure in the backyard, wear her high heels around the house, and fix her hair in a plethora of "fashionable" styles. But besides being incredibly keen with what children will like, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle also knows exactly how to make them behave...and how to cure all their bad habits. So it is that all the neighborhood mothers come to Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle with their most challenging discipline problems.

I don't know why I thought I needed to read a parenting book to recharge my parenting battery; Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle already had all the answers! If my children won't take a bath, then I should just stop forcing them and wait until they are so dirty I can plant radish seeds all over them. If they're being selfish with their possessions, then I should promptly label and lock up every single thing that belongs to them (including toothbrushes, sandwiches, and socks). And if they refuse to pick up their toys, then the solution rests in not picking up anything until their room is so messy, they've essentially trapped themselves in, at which point I should pierce their dinner onto a garden rake and squeeze it through the window so that they won't starve.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle seems to be of the school, "Let your kids reap their own consequences (i.e., the consequence of having a room so cluttered you literally can't walk through it and let yourself out--never mind the fire hazard), and soon enough, they will decide to mend their ways." And to a certain extent, I can't say I disagree with her. Certainly letting kids learn the "hard way" before it's really the hard way is the most memorable and longest-lasting. But honestly, radishes? That cure was just too much for me even though it was one of the most entertaining.

One of the later books is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic, and I think I must be remembering that book better than the rest because when I was reading this one to Aaron and Max, I kept expecting her cures to involve magic, and not a one of them does. Instead, these are all cures you could theoretically duplicate at home, although not without a lot of pain and difficulty on your part.

Aaron and Maxwell liked Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle well enough. Some of the chapters they found uproariously funny, particularly the one with the back-talking parrot (and I was just hoping I wouldn't hear "I'll do it because I want to but not because you tell me to" the next day).

Each chapter follows a very predictable pattern: introduction of the problem behavior (ex. Joan and Anne are bickering constantly); the mother calls all her friends for advice (the father is usually next to no help); finally, someone suggests calling Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle; of course Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle has cured a dozen just such cases and gives detailed instructions; the mother follows the instructions to the letter, even if it means starving her beloved child (see Chapter 7, "The Slow-Eater-Tiny-Bite-Taker Cure," which maybe was a problem in the 40's, but I have never heard of any child doing such a thing in the present day); after a few days (or weeks), the child is cured and normal life resumes. The end. Aaron and Max loved the predictability. After the opening scene of each chapter, I would ask, "Now what is the mom going to do?" "Call her friends!" Aaron would say, and sure enough, in the next paragraph, she'd be calling Mrs. Grassfeather or Mrs. Gardenfield (these friends all had the strangest names). I, on the other hand, found the unyielding predictability a little tedious.

My main complaint though was with the ending mainly because there was, um, no ending. Period. The final chapter is about Joan and Anne and their constant quarreling, and the chapter (and the book) concludes with, "The Fighter-Quarreleritis was cured." There wasn't a final shout-out to Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, no allusion to her continuing to help and love all children, and no summary of all the great works she'd already done. It ended exactly like every other chapter before it had ended, and it left me with a very unfinished feeling.

One last heads-up: it is very much a book from the 1940's, which means a lot of aproned homemakers, well-mannered children, and of course, the dreaded physical punishment (i.e. spanking). Several of the parents mention this (usually with a trace of humor), but some modern parents might not find this so funny. Personally, I am not a spanker (although I can't say there haven't been moments when I've wanted to), but I didn't mind this being a part of the story.

Anyway, for just some good, ol' fashioned fun and some really outlandish parenting solutions, I think you'd enjoy Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.

I'm sharing this post with The Children's Bookshelf and the Kid Lit Blog Hop.

Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman

I read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother several years ago. I loved it. I was so interested to see how Chinese parenting differed from American parenting. I viewed it strictly as a memoir, not as a parenting manual, but nonetheless, I found myself agreeing with a great deal of it.

So when Pamela Druckerman's book came out about French parenting, instead of rolling my eyes like so many and complaining, "Why do we have to read about another country's superior parenting," I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

And just like Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, I found it absolutely fascinating.

I've decided if you're going to read books with parenting as a theme, this is the way to do it: part memoir, part parenting how-to. (For the record, I would say Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was almost all memoir whereas Bringing Up Bébé is about half and half.) Of course, I will still always love my nerdy parenting manuals (The Parenting Breakthrough, Love and Logic Magic, etc.), but it is so fun to read an account of someone else's life and the discoveries about parenting they made along the way.

Which is exactly what happens in Bringing Up Bébé. Pamela Druckerman is American. Her husband is British. And they live in France. After their first child, a daughter they call "Bean," is born, Pamela begins to notice some blatant differences between French children and her own child. For example, French babies "do their nights" (aka, begin sleeping through the night) somewhere between three and six months (and many much earlier than that), whereas Bean is not even close to sleeping through the entire night when she hits the six-month mark. She also notices other trends: French children sit quietly at mealtime, eat a wide variety of foods, and don't throw tantrums when they're told to be patient and wait.

Now if you're like me, reading that last paragraph maybe fired up a little healthy indignation: "Well, my child slept through the night at six weeks!" (confession: mine didn't, but I know plenty of American babies who do). Or, "My nephew prefers lettuce over pizza" (true story). "He is a very well-rounded eater." Or, "You should see this mom in my neighborhood. Her kids obey faster than soldiers in the army." And so I had to remind myself (many times) that for the sake of making a believable argument, Druckerman had to make generalizations on both sides (and she's quick to acknowledge that in all cases they are that: generalizations). Of course just because you're an American parent doesn't mean you have to make your child the center of the universe. And just because you're a French parent doesn't mean you won't have a child who balks against the nation's standards. It's all in perspective. Depending on the research, you could probably make a case for the opposite side of the argument. It doesn't change the fact that much of the research cited here in this book is still solid, reputable research (regardless of how it might be twisted to put French parenting in an extremely favorable light). 

Here's how I handled my own haughty moments of pride: if it was something I agreed with (insisting that children learn to play by themselves without adult intervention), I counted it as good research. If it was something I didn't agree with (children are just as happy, emotionally healthy, and smart being in daycare all day instead of at home), I reminded myself that this was just a memoir. Maybe not quite fair, but it worked.

And I couldn't deny that some of her examples of American parents sounded eerily familiar.  For example, when she described a mother in New York City who followed her child around at the park and narrated everything he did ("You're upside down! We came to the park! We came to the park!"), I felt certain she was describing the same mother I saw at the park last summer. The funny thing is that when I'm around mothers like that, I feel like I should be following my own children around, enthusiastically exclaiming over all of their activities. The reason I think it's funny is because if you held up two contrasting mothers (one who hovers and exclaims and another who sits quietly on the sidelines), I would definitely say that I wanted to be like the mom on the sidelines--present but giving my children space and freedom to explore. And yet, when I'm next to one of those overzealous mothers, I feel like we're in competition with each other and I have to prove that I'm just as attentive a mother as she is. According to Druckerman, French parents aren't like that, maybe almost to a fault in the other direction. One quote from early on in the book captured this difference perfectly: "American women typically demonstrate our commitment by worrying and by showing how much we're willing to sacrifice, even while pregnant; whereas Frenchwomen signal their commitment by projecting calm and flaunting the fact they haven't renounced pleasure" (p. 23).

The book is organized like a parenting manual with each chapter focusing on a different aspect of parenting, and I felt that give-and-take (like I described above) with every single chapter. I agreed with parts; I disagreed with others; but even when I disagreed, it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the book because beneath it all was one person's fascinating and intriguing story. And I love the details of other people's ordinary lives.

Last month, I mentioned that I was reading this book not just for pleasure but also because I felt like my own parenting could use a little pick-me-up. And it gave me just the boost I needed and empowered me to make some changes in our routines and my own expectations: one snack in the morning, one snack in the afternoon (Druckerman says the French only do an afternoon snack, but my kids wake up at 6:00am; they would never make it to lunch without a morning snack), requiring them to play downstairs in the playroom while I make dinner, making my instructions and requests more authoritative and convincing, not letting them interrupt Mike and me if we are having a conversation, and expecting Bradley to sleep through the night (never mind that at 16-months, he's well past the six-month deadline). So in this way, this book did exactly what I was hoping for.

There were times though when I really questioned the credibility of the whole French way. For example, in the chapter, "The Perfect Mother Doesn't Exist," Druckerman talks about Inès de la Fressange, a French model and mother of two daughters. Druckerman says, "She says she's an imperfect mother, too," and then she quotes de la Fressange: "I forget about morning yoga, and I always put on lip gloss and mascara in the car mirror. What's important is to rid yourself of guilt over not being perfect." I think at this point I actually laughed out loud. I wonder what de la Fressange would think if she knew that sometimes I don't even wear lip gloss or mascara, period? There were other quotes like this one where I would think, "And this is who we're taking advice from? Really?"

There were also times when I didn't really appreciate Druckerman either. She was sometimes a little crude for my taste, and I think our personalities are probably very different. Let's just say I was not surprised when she said that her first book was a "journalistic study of how different cultures treat infidelity" and was called Lust in Translation.

I listened to the audio version of this book, and I honestly don't think there is a better way to read it. It just begs to be read aloud. I thought Abby Craden did a masterful job with the multitude of accents. Druckerman frequently described the quality of a certain person's voice, and Craden interpreted each one beautifully. I think I'd be lucky to pull off one convincing French accent, and Craden probably did over a dozen different variations besides various American, British, and other European accents. Really, really impressive. Plus, I always tend to enjoy a book like this more if I can actually here what "crèche" or "goûter" is supposed to sound like instead of just brushing over it in my mind.


There's more I'd like to talk about (if you can't already tell, this would make an excellent choice for a book club discussion), but I think that's probably enough for today. I'm curious which country's parenting philosophy we'll see next? Ukranian? Ethiopian? Brazilian? No matter what, you can be sure I'll read it.

Reading With the Seasons: Be My Valentine

February is here! It's not as exciting as April or May, but hey, I'll take it.

And with February comes the unavoidable Valentine's Day. What books make you think of love and passion, loyalty and undying devotion? The more I've thought about how to "read with the season" for this month, the more I've realized that you can twist and turn just about any book and have love come up as a theme somewhere. Let's test it:

Think of a classic, any classic. For the sake of this exercise, let's choose A Tale of Two Cities. There's the lovely courtship and marriage between Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay, and there's also the enduring love of Lucie to her father. But then, of course, there's the crowning moment where Sydney Carton offers his own life on behalf of someone else. Who'd have thought the French Revolution and Valentine's Day could go together?

Too easy? Okay, how about a children's story? Say, The Cricket in Times Square? You might recall the boys and I read this recently and loved it. The friendship between Chester, Tucker, and Harry is sweet, and Chester even suffers unhappiness and discontentment so that he can help Mario and his family. All in the name of love.

I could keep going--Wonder (learning to love someone in spite of their differences), Matilda (embracing a talent that you love), Little House on the Prairie (feeling safe in the wilderness because you're with the ones you love), Stress-Free Potty Training (enduring to the end to teach an important life skill to someone you love--okay, maybe that's carrying it a bit too far)--but I think you get the point.

I haven't mapped out all the books I'm reading this month (where's the fun in that? I want to read what I feel like when I feel like it), but I do have one from the library right now that I specifically chose because it seemed more or less like a good choice for Valentine's Day: The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer (a regency romance novel about a young woman who interferes in the love lives of her cousins without realizing she's falling in love herself--at least, that's what it sounds like; I'm only a few pages in). I've been wanting to read something by Georgette Heyer for a long time now, so February seemed like the perfect month to do it. I love the saucy dialogues, the early 19th century time period, and the proper British etiquette that make up a regency romance. This should be a treat.

I have several other books I'm wanting to read this month, but I may have to do a little of the above creative manipulation to classify them as great Valentine's Day reads: Peace Like a River (family loyalty and love?), Learning All the Time (instilling a love of learning into my children?), Splendors and Glooms (because I love the Newbery?).

I've also thought about how great it would be to read some kind of relationship book this month. No matter what kind of relationship you want to strengthen (marriage, family, friends, etc.), there's a book for it. Even when I don't agree with all of the suggestions or research, these types of books always help me come away with ideas for how to improve the friendships I have with the people I love best.

Okay, so I wasn't really intending for this post to get so ridiculous, but the more I thought about books about love, the more I realized you'd be hard pressed not to find a book about love. It's human nature. It's in our blood to want to love and help and care for others, and so it's difficult to write a story and not have that innate desire come through. And who would want to read such a book anyway?

Now it's your turn: share your favorite love story (Jane Eyre! Edenbrooke! These is My Words!...sorry, I can't stop talking!), or tell me how whatever you're reading might be classified as a love story. Get creative! (And don't be shy!)

P.S. Photography credit once again goes to my awesome brother, Gordy. He's the best.