“Mommy, read to me” is a phrase I hear maybe fifty times a day. In addition to the guaranteed three at bedtime, I probably cave and read another fifteen to twenty books daily to my three year old. It’s not that I mind. A love of reading is something I definitely want to cultivate in my children. But recently Cassidy has become aware that the letters on the page combine to mean something, that the words stay the same every time it’s read. That means a lot of sounding out, and keeping pace with a little finger that indicates each word individually. And I can forget about skipping over things ( I personally hate reading aloud books about dinosaurs, with all their unpronouncable names, and would just pass over all the technical bits. The kids love these books, though, the drier the better).

What this means is that a good portion of my day is spent reading children’s books aloud, so I thought I’d give them a bit of attention here. I love fishing through the children’s room in the library, looking for good new reads. I love reading old childhood favorites aloud. And, as we all know, I love the sound of my own voice.

Keep in mind- reading to kids is a much richer experience for everyone involved (the child in question, the reader, other people in the room listening to Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? for the eighteenth night in a row) if you look for books that flow smoothly, and lend themselves well to dramatic presentation.

For example, Cass has suddenly fallen head over heels for Dr. Seuss and P.D. Eastman. These are a lot of fun to read! I made the “mistake” early on, of incorporating lots of silly voices and singing; now I have to do that every time. This eliminates any chance of pawning off the reading to Daddy or older brothers, becuase “they don’t do it right“. That’s OK. There is nothing better than a kid who wants to hear a story over and over, that’s how they learn to read; more importantly, that’s how they want to learn to read. Cass “reads” to her plush animals all the time, and sometimes to real animals too.

Even if you don’t have pushy, rhyme-addicted kids, I highly recommend reading a Dr. Seuss, any Dr. Seuss, out loud every once in a while. Whether it’s to your dog, your houseplants, or your mailman, do it just for a general sense of well-being:

The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you’ll go.

You might learn a way to earn a few dollars.
Or how to make doughnuts…
or kangaroo collars.

You can learn to read music
and play a Hut-Zut
if you keep your eyes open.
But not with them shut.

-Dr. Seuss
I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

There- doesn’t that feel good?

On the flip side, Cass will want a book because it has a character from one of her TV shows on the cover. Sometimes I would buy them from Scholastic because they’re inexpensive, and I want to support the Scholastic program in the classroom. Don’t do it! These books are selling a product, and that product is not reading. I know many people say that it doesn’t matter what kids read, as long as they’re reading, but I whole-heartedly disagree. These books are often nothing but synopses of an episode, the language is overly simplistic, they do not flow well at all, and I don’t like reading them. These books should be considered like candy; pretty and fun, OK for once in a while, but really not good for you. Exceptions to this, of course, are character books where the books came first: the Max and Ruby books by Rosemary Wells and H.A. Rey’s Curious George spring to mind. I still buy from Scholastic, but I stick to titles I recognize.

Anyway, here’s the Top 10 for this week:

1. The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, by Mo Willems
2. BooBoo by Olivier Dunrea
3. David Gets in Trouble, by David Shannon
4. What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartz
5. Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse by Lindsay Barrett George
6. Froggy Learns to Swim, by Jonathan London
7. Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman
8. Time to Pee! by Mo Willems
9. Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss
10. Max’s Dragon Shirt, by Rosemary Wells

I think I’ve read Green Eggs and Ham twenty times in five days. But I vividly remember the crushing disappointment I felt as a child when my Uncle George- the only adult in my life that would read to me- refused to read it to me “just one more time“. So, I will read it here and there, I will read it anywhere, I just hope she moves on to another book soon.

I am torn between just posting on this site, reviews on books that the kids love, or that I love to read to them, or actually launching another site entirely for kids’ books. Thoughts?

We are our habits, yes? I have lots of bad habits. Unfortunately, most of mine are psychological rather than physical, and not so easily broken. It was not so hard for me to quit smoking, even though I smoked for nearly two decades (that’s quite a bit more than half my life, people, ugh, I’m so ashamed). It was also not so hard to make a conscious decision to clean as you go, wake up earlier, or spend an hour every day doing whatever my three-year-old wants to do no matter how mind-numbing it is.

For me, it’s much harder to stop being so negative and hyper-critical or stop worrying so much.

Almost impossible to remember that sarcasm is not the same as humor.

(Getting easier, though: write every day, tread lightly on our earth, and find time to be happy.)

How lucky for me that M.J. Ryan wrote a book to aid me in my quests, with the admittedly awkward title This Year I Will…

First off, I feel that this title seems to imply that I have committed to a New Year’s resolution, which I have not and never will. But I was so intrigued by the notion that someone had written a whole book about how to change a habit or keep a resolution, that I had to give it a quick read. And it is a quick read, lots of short chapters, not terribly taxing, just perfect for before bed.

As it turns out, This Year I will… is not the piece of fluff that I suspected it would be, but full of good advice and practical information, inspirational quotes (my favorite!) and testimonials.

It is divided into into three major categories:

Section One: Preparing to Change. You have to be committed to the change or you will make wishy-washy excuses not to do it. This will happen in spite of the fact that you are perfectly aware that it will happen. These are the bits I found most pertinent to my situation:

“No Time is the Perfect Time to Begin”. I know that I am guilty of thinking, I’ll write when all the kids are in school full-time. We’ll really start saving money after we pay off this bill. I’ll start sewing things to sell in a shop on Etsy after I figure out all the functions on my sewing machine. But the truth is, I can procrastinate like nobody’s business. There is always going to be something I can find to fill my time or fritter away money on. So, from now on, it’s all about today. Leo on Zen Habits has a sign that reads “Don’t Talk. Type.” Maybe I should post something that screams, “What are you waiting for? Do it NOW!”

Ryan uses this quote to illustrate her point:

Every successful person I have heard of has done the best he could with the conditions as he found them, and not waited until next year to be better.

-E.W. Howe

I think this is just as apt and much more elegant:

In American lives, there are no second acts.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

This one is nice too:

Do not delay;

The golden moments fly!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“You Can’t Get Fit By Watching Others Exercise.” Ryan says that we “confuse reading and thinking with doing”; also that “we’re all experts at reading and talking about change and beginners at putting change into action.” Ahem. Ok. Guilty as charged. Let’s move on.

Talk does not cook rice.
-Chinese proverb

Section Two: Getting Into Action. Here we find the advice and motivational skills to get off our butts and get started. I found lots of useful info here; most importantly:

“It’s Going to Feel Awkward at First.” Ryan points out, “When you first begin to do something new or different, you are not very good at it.” Oh. Wait. That’s true for everybody? I can’t tell you how many things I’ve abandoned or not even started because I wasn’t very good at it or didn’t make measurable progress right away. This was the epiphany moment for me, and it’s so stupid and little, something you hear all the time. Practice makes perfect. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

“Yes, You Can Find the Time.” I’ve been working on this; I get up at 5:45 in the morning and I’ll shoot for 5:30 soon now, I’ll start getting up at 5:30. I liked the quote:

Time is a created thing. To say “I don’t have time” is to say, “I don’t want to.”

-Lao Tzu

“When You Don’t Know What to Do, Channel Someone Who Does.” Ryan relates the story of her friend who grew up very shy, and learned to present herself as Katharine Hepburn to pull her through social situations. I was tickled by this because, having grown up painfully shy myself, I will channel Audrey Hepburn to suffer through social situations. However, while Ryan’s friend is channelling the traits she sees in Katharine- courageousness, honesty, and generosity- I will physically dress as Audrey and put on a show, so to speak. For me, it is easier to play a role and be remembered as the weirdo who came in costume, than to be myself and be judged on those grounds.

I was also struck by the irony that I have always seen myself as already being too much like Katherine Hepburn- tomboyish, horsey and brash, with perhaps a tendency to talk a bit too loudly. I’ve always seen it as a Hepburn vs. Hepburn scenario, with Audrey clearly winning out, for who wouldn’t want Audrey’s poise, simple elegance and delicate beauty? Reading this chapter made me realize that perhaps being compared to Katharine Hepburn- and make no mistake about it, this comparison is only in my own mind!- is maybe not the worst thing in the world.

Section Three: Keeping Going. Now that I’ve decided I need to change, and made the push to just do it, how do I keep the momentum rolling, day to day, for the rest of my life?

“Don’t Let “Them” Bring You Down.” Yes, I am continually being teased at home for being a booknerd and a hippie. Really all it took was a mental mindshift for this to stop getting in my way. I quit seeing it as a personal attack and chose to view it as affectionate teasing. Slowly, I realized that’s probably what it was from the beginning.

This also applies well to the day-to-day stresses of parenting. If my three year old is whining up a storm at Happy Harry’s, because she wants all the toys and coloring books and bubble blowers that are so helpfully lined up right next to the waiting area in the pharmacy, where we have to sit for ten minutes to get antibiotics that she has to have because she is sick, remember, and older women start exchanging pointed glances and muttering about how they would never let a child act like that in public, well, I’m giving myself permission to blithely ignore them. Because M.J. Ryan told me not to let “them” bring me down.

“You Can’t Change What You’ve Done, Only What You’re Going To Do.” Ha! I think I’ll print that out too, and hang it next to my “Do it NOW!” sign. Maybe with this quote for further inspiration:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

-L.P. Hartley

“Ask for Help from Invisible Hands.” Around these parts, we (and by “we”, I mean “I”) call this “the universe provides” and “the karma effect”. Yes, I am vaguely embarassed to publicly admit to such a New Age-y concept, but I can’t dismiss it. When I am positive, good things happen. When I am negative, bad things snowball, until I hit bottom and look for help from any quarter. And then something coincidental and wildly unlikely will occur to bail me out.

This has happened to me so many times that even my husband, Mr. Skeptic Meany-Pants, has accepted it as some sort of weird personality defect. As Ryan points out, you don’t have to understand or believe. It just happens, and when it does, I like to step back and be grateful for a second. And whenever I can, I try to do something kind to send a little of that positive energy back into the universe.

In summary:

This Year I Will…How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True. Odd title, full of solid advice and positive thinking, nice inspirational quotes, not preachy or touchy-feely, a fast before-bed read, highly enjoyable, now available at your local library. “What are you waiting for? Do it NOW!”

Your beliefs become your thoughts.

Your thoughts become your words.

Your words become your actions.

Your actions become your habits.

Your habits become your values.

Your values become your destiny.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-Susan Ertz
Anger in the Sky

OK, technically I have not “read” this book, but holy cow, do we use it. A team of chefs allegedly cooked every recipe in this cookbook a billion different ways, using different techniques, ingredients, and cook times; they then selected the one that is the best combination of flavor and ease, and delivered unto you this holy grail. Thank you, test chefs.

The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is full of pictures (over 1500), including clearly illustrated how-tos. It offers up 1200+ recipes, variations on those recipes, emergency substitutions, and helpful tips. It alerts you to the best equipment- the best slow cooker, the best cookie sheets, whatever. It tells you how long to boil hard-boiled eggs (start raw eggs in cold water- bring to boil- remove pot from heat- steep for 10 minutes) and the best way to cook corn on the cob (add sugar to water to enhance sweetness- hold the salt to prevent toughness)-the sorts of things other cookbooks assume your mother taught you. I have not come across a loser recipe yet. We will regularly flip through because we have a spare chunk of time, select a recipe because we have those particular ingredients on hand, go ahead and make it, and it will be delicious.

Case in point: yesterday, to warm up the house on a rainy Sunday morning, we made monkey bread (I like to call it “monkey bread, monkey bread”, in a singsong voice, for no good reason). Here it is in all its golden sticky glory:

And yes, it is super yummy, although a lot of the caramel goodness ran out of the pan (our Bundt has a removable insert, and it leaked through) and smoked up our oven. I now recommend a solid pan for monkey bread, monkey bread; the one William-Sonoma sells is a thing of joy and beauty forever.

The one complaint I have about the Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is that it consists of a binder with rather thin pages, and in our oafish enthusiasm (think frantically flipping pages with oven mitts on) we have ripped a number of pages out of the binder. I’ve remedied the problem with hole reinforcers, but really, I don’t think I should have to bust out the office supplies while making Sunday brunch. I suppose if they made the pages of a heavier stock, it would make the binder heavy and unwieldy. So, another recommendation: if you are not a crazy office supply collector like myself, pick up hole reinforcers if you buy the book. You will need them sooner or later.

In summary: The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Better than The Joy of Cooking. That’s right. I said it.