so much to say...

So little time! I have a whole list of topics I want to write about, and can't seem to find time to sit down and write. All day long I put it off, figuring I'll have more time after the boys go to bed, but that limited space of time fills up rapidly and I wind up tired and wanting to go to bed way too early these days. (Hoping that's a hormonal thing that will go away once I'm done with the pumping—I miss being alert at night!) My entire to-do list has been neglected pretty much since Veronica was born. I'm trying to get back to getting things accomplished, but it's slow going. I just got in my first post-third child being born journal, so it's definitely time to develop some time organization again. Wish me luck!

a book I'm not keeping

I finished Penne Restad's Christmas in America tonight. It started off seeming like a good, if slow-going, overview of the development of Christmas as we know it, with lots of interesting factoids packed in. And it continued to be that through to the end ... but unfortunately, some of the factoids that I knew something about already didn't seem as well-researched as they might have been, casting a dim light on the rest of the book. I hate it when a nonfiction has this problem. Jay Winik's April 1865 was another case in point—I loved the writing style and the mini-essays in which the book was written, but by the end just didn't trust that the author had all his facts. In the case of Christmas in America, I was really excited about some of the items I read in the first few chapters. For example, according to Restad, Clement C. Moore essentially created the character of Santa Claus as we know him today (reindeer and all) as a composite of a number of earlier references and descriptions—and the first appearance in print of Moore's poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was in the local newspaper of a small town called Troy, NY, which is coincidentally home to Lou's alma mater.

However, reading on, Restad made a couple of mistakes in her snapshot of Dickens' A Christmas Carol and in her description of the famous letter to Virginia O'Hanlon ("Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"). And sadly, once I had questions about the overall reliability of her facts, it really took away from my enjoyment of the book.

So, not keeping it. Which is extra sad, because I hate to have read a book that isn't worth keeping, when there are so many others out there that I want to make the time to read. One of my quirks is that I pretty much have to own any book I read, so I preselect what I buy based on the perceived likelihood that I'll be keeping it. I have a pretty high success rate (and a huge backlog of to-be-read books), so I don't waste too much money on it ... and given how long it can take me to get around to reading any given book, borrowing wouldn't be a good option for me anyway!

(Next up for bedside reading: William C. Davis' A Taste for War, a culinary history of the Civil War. Looking forward to it!)

the "fun mom"

At my mother's group this morning, we were talking about fun in the context of parenting, and it brought up the sense of guilt that always hangs out in the back of my mind.

I always thought I'd be the "fun mom". Down on the floor, pretending to be whatever, surrounded by kids, etc. Truth is, I kind of find playing with the kids boring. Frankly, I'm ashamed. Often when they ask me to do something, my first reaction is a variation on "Do I have to?" And that just isn't right! As a stay-at-home-mom, I should be enjoying the heck out of this stuff, not feeling like it's a chore.

This sense of guilt pops up every couple of months or so, and I worry until either I try some remedy (usually short-lived) or get distracted by ongoing life events. I continue to be hopeful that maybe as they get older, my interests and theirs will meld better. And I keep trying new ideas to work "playtime" into my psyche as a privilege.

mallrants

Well, I did it. Yesterday evening I packed up all three kids and took my first solo trip to the mall. Personally, I like the mall. Fortunately, so do my kids! (Probably not a big mental leap there.) But I wasn't sure how it was going to go, shopping with all of them.

Overall, not so bad. I put the boys in the double stroller and the baby in the Bjorn. She slept the whole time, and the boys and I managed to pick out three pairs of shoes (two for Charles, one for Grey) without any major meltdowns. (I was nervous—in Charles's size there were a cool pair of Teen Titans shoes, while Greyson went home with a plain red and black pair. I expected fireworks, but Grey was happy with his.) We even checked out a couple of other stores and then had a Mrs. Field's cookie, and remained all in pretty good spirits.

Now for the rants (and warning: they may be petty. So be it.).

Why do people selling time-consuming health and beauty products (notably moisturizers and nail care products, from what I've seen) from the kiosks think that a mom with three small kids is going to have time to use their products ... or stop and talk to them, for that matter? Can't they pick on someone unencumbered for their sales pitch? Seems like it would be more profitable.

If you're driving through a parking lot and you spy a woman with three little kids (i.e., all car seat users) JUST opening the door of her minivan, why do you stop and wait for her spot? Seriously, it takes me a good 10 minutes to get everyone out of the strollers and into the car seats—and that's without the stress of knowing someone is hovering in a large machine over my shoulder being irritated because I'm not moving faster! The spot wasn't that great, either, and the parking lot wasn't that full. Heck, the guy could have circled the lot a couple of times instead of blocking half the lane (and creating a more dangerous situation for me, moving around my car, as other cars sped up irritably to get around him), and I STILL wouldn't have left yet.

Ah, well. I was pleased with the boys' behavior ... and am looking forward to Veronica getting big enough to sit in the stroller. Not only was she a little heavy in the Bjorn, it was also darn hot!

tempus fugit

My mental clock for most of this year pretty much stopped at the end of October. The whole year my energies were all geared up for the birth of the baby, with mental milestone markers on the arrival and departure dates of Auntie and Grandma.

So you can imagine my shock to discover that we're now in mid-November! When the heck did that get here? And the holidays are coming! Thanksgiving and Christmas were so far off my radar that I'm a little taken aback to realize that not only are they occurring this year, there are mere weeks remaining. Fortunately Thanksgiving is pretty quiet for us—it'll be just us, maybe Mark, and the biggest challenge will be getting the boys to actually eat some of the dinner.

But Christmas! Whoa. I have way too many thoughts on what to get the boys, and no organization to them. No clue what to get Lou; and even worse—no idea what I want AT ALL! (No idea what to get Veronica, either ... but that's really only because I haven't shopped yet. I don't expect many challenges there except the need to stop shopping!) I can't imagine being ready to get the decorations down from the attic, much less put them up.

Apparently it's long past the point where I need to get with it and rejoin the march of time, since it seems determined to pass whether I'm paying attention to it or not!

autonomy!

Today, everyone was gone. All our helping visitors had gone home, Lou was back at work, and I was alone with my three kids. It was perfect timing.

I really appreciated having family come to visit—I was able to take my time recovering from the delivery, get into and used to a pumping schedule, get Veronica sleeping well enough that I'm getting some rest, and ease into the challenges involved in shepherding three kids around. All things I could never have done if it had been just Lou and myself post-partum. But four weeks is a long time to have visitors! And it seemed like it was confusing for the boys, as well—they always had two voices of authority in the household, often making different decisions; the routines and schedules shifted around; and, of course, in the back of it all was me not being able to be with them and tend to them the way they are used to.

So between the boys pushing their boundaries and me feeling like I was losing control of my own house, it was definitely time for all of us to get back to normal. And today went really well! Normal morning, both the boys in their gym classes, nice quiet nap time, watched a movie in the afternoon. By the time Daddy got home we were all pretty frazzled, but that used to happen pre-baby V, so I'm not too surprised by it. It is nice to be in charge again. (But keep an eye out for a future entry on what a micro-manager I am and how I really need to let go of the reins a little—I'm running the risk of becoming downright rigid.)

book reviews #2

Baby V is now over three weeks old, which means it's time for Mommy to start getting back into her routines—including regular blog entries. So I'll start by catching up on my book reviews.

I finished both my bedside books: a reread of the collected works of Dorothy Parker, and Olivier Bernier's The World in 1800. Parker, as always, was twisted, jaded, and acerbic ... but she knew how to craft a good story. The volume also included her poetry (hit and miss) and book and theatre reviews. She took the book reviews much more seriously, and was clearly passionate about her reading. The World in 1800 was just what the title suggests—an overview of what was going on in the world in the year 1800 and the decade leading up to it. Bernier did a good job, I felt, of remaining impartial and painting the portrait of each different culture. Some, of course, were given more space than others—I'd have liked a little more on Japan and Africa, specifically, and could have used a little less on America and the presidency. (But then, that's the part of the world I already knew the most about, so I don't think I can fault him for that!) They've been replaced at my bedside by the collected shorter poems of W.H. Auden and Penne Restad's Christmas in America.

I had a disappointing round of fiction reading, and by my favorite authors, too. I read Louis L'Amour's Brionne, which packed way too much into a much-too-short volume. The plot points could have stood an extra couple of hundred pages. As it was, the whole story moved along too fast. It read more like an outline than like a finished work. A good outline, mind you, but still, missing a lot of detail.

James Ellroy let me down even further. The Black Dahlia had all the usual elements of his works—the complex twisted web of plot points, the tortured hero cop with antihero habits, the gritty underbelly of early L.A. on parade. But it was missing the inspiration. It felt like "just another Ellroy" instead of "whoa, another Ellroy!" I had expected more, I have to admit.

I've given up completely on Leslie Charteris and the Saint, after reading The Saint in New York. Charteris is a good writer, nice potboiler style, the Saint is a good character. But somehow, again, there's something missing there. The books just don't inspire me to keep reading them.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Communion Blood was definitely worth reading—if surprisingly poorly edited. What was going on with all the misplaced commas? In this case I think it was the subject matter. The book took place in Rome after a companion character had died the "True Death" (vampire lit.), and the free-flowing angst just isn't my favorite part of Yarbro's works.

I'm now rereading Behind a Mask, a volume of Louisa May Alcott's short stories (the ones written and sold to "sensation" magazines, so lots of mesmerism and other dark and occult themes). I don't think I've read this particular book for about 10 years, and while I can definitely see what I liked about the stories at that age and time in my life, now I'm looking at them with a more critical eye and they seem somewhat juvenile ... in a way that, interestingly, her other works, which are actually classified as juvenile, do not.

Hoping to have better reports next time I have book reviews to do—it's clearly been a dull reading month!