Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Or DCFS, CPS, whatever. I just wanted to let you know that when I yelled at my son to go around to the other side of the car–after telling him in a perfectly nice voice twice–he suggested I slap him to get his attention instead of yell.

I did NOT slap him.

(But I kind of wanted to strangle him.)

Can I report my son for suggesting I slap him?

Sincerely,

The mother of a 13-year-old boy who didn’t take his ADHD medication this morning

That’s what my 10-year-old told me I was yesterday–after wishing me happy birthday. Since I had to get up before 3 am to take my older girlies to the airport, however, I may have felt most of the way to 92 most of the day. (It took me forever to get back to sleep, and even that was more of a doze.) Since it was my birthday, however, I took it upon myself to lay in bed and finish Kayla Miller’s Stuck, her latest ‘Click’ graphic novel. In it Olive and her friends–as well as Nat, who’s never really quite a friend–are back at summer camp, only her two best camp friends start fighting and refuse to speak to each other. (They’re also insisting that Olive choose between them at every activity the three of them would normally do together.) Nat is making no secret of her lack of enthusiasm for the entire camp experience, and Olive is sure her summer is ruined. She does perk up at the chance to present a plan for how to spend money being donated to the camp, but will the persistent rain ruin that, too?

Stuck presents a worthwhile perspective on how to deal with friend drama (spoiler alert: I’m not talking about Nat’s ‘let’s make popcorn and enjoy the show’ attitude.) It also presents a strong what-can-we-do-for-the-environment message, which feels more natural given the setting than environmental messages often do nowadays. Being halfway to 92, I just wanted the friend drama to be over already, but I suspect the target audience will be less aggravated. Stuck is a solid addition to Miller’s series.

As for the rest of my birthday, it was a quiet day, with phone calls from family and an eventual (and inevitable under the circumstances) nap. We went to ‘Spitz’ for dinner, had ice cream when we got home, and enjoyed the occasional picture and update from my mil about our older girls.

Now, of course, we have a week of being (more or less) a family of four. It’s going to be weird!

That, of course, is what happened on Monday–we’ve been getting our older girls ready for their cousin trip with my in-laws. Tonight is their last night at home–I’m taking them to the airport at an unholy hour of the morning–and I tried a random recipe I found on Pinterest for dinner. (Because–just because.) Except, of course, I made changes.

To begin with, even though it’s a recipe for BBQ Chicken Cornbread Casserole, I don’t buy ground chicken. I did, however, have just over a pound of ground pork in my freezer from someone’s “I’m moving and have to empty my freezer” life event, and since it’s been in there for a bit, I was thrilled to pull it out and use IT instead. Because I don’t cook with bell pepper I was going to use celery instead, except guess what I’m apparently out of? (My daughter put it on the list–I just didn’t look.) I went with grated carrot instead, and my kiddos said the whole recipe tasted like fancy sloppy joes. (They weren’t wrong.) Overall, I think I’d recommend it–most of my family were fine with it, and it made a solid dinner when accompanied by some Hami melon.

Now, to get my older girlies finished packing…

That’s what the last week or so has been, folks. We spent the 4th of July in Clearfield, where lightning forced burgers from the grill to the griddle, and went to see the city fireworks with the littles and my oldest (#2 did fireworks with a cousin and her friends instead). We spent most of the 5th there as well, attending a bridal shower at 4, and then the three younger kids and I headed to Idaho for a (very) quick trip while my hubby and our oldest went home. (She had a hard-to-reschedule doctor’s appointment; he had to work.) We got in at 11 on Saturday night, which is never the best case scenario, and spent Sunday and Monday spending time with my nephew’s family (plus other family members) before driving home on Tuesday so that both my older girls could head to youth conference first thing Wednesday morning. The littles and I have been home during the days until now (it’s Saturday morning), and while the girlies get back today, they’re only in town until early Thursday morning, when they leave for a week.

That week is going to be a weird one.

Anyway. The one thing I did manage to do is finish reading Michael Morpurgo’s Kaspar the Titanic Cat (it didn’t seem to have a reliable link) aloud to my youngest. She enjoyed Morpurgo’s tale of a cat brought to the Savoy by a Russian countess and its adventures with the young bellboy who helped take care of it. (I was afraid the details about the sinking of the Titanic would give her bad dreams, but apparently not?) Certainly that was the most vivid part of the book for me; the rest of it was a nice story, but (probably for the most obvious of reasons) that part lived. It’s about 200 pages with occasional illustrations, so accessible for elementary readers on their own (especially animal lovers).* Give this one a try!

*Sorry that wasn’t the smoothest of segues; I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in days.

As in, three teenagers, folks. Today is my only son’s birthday, and I now officially have THREE TEENAGERS! (Plus a 10-year-old.) We had streuselly coffee cake for breakfast, we’re having grilled chicken, cooked carrots, and orange rolls for dinner, and in the meantime, the holiday weekend is more or less upon us. Yowsers! I’ve also managed to make the arm in which I pulled something at water aerobics last week continually worse, which is frustrating. On the other hand, I use both of my arms on a pretty regular basis, so…

Anyway. I had lunch with a friend from RI this week, which was lovely, and got my 15-year-old’s retainer replaced. (I know the metal/hard plastic ones are out of vogue nowadays, but we’ve had to replace retainers for both braces graduates. Grrr.) We’re working out logistics for the holiday weekend and getting the older girls ready for youth conference next week. And all I’d really like to do right now is manage to be lights off before midnight…

Once again I’m doing the post of shame. Maybe I should just accept that summer posting is going to be irregular? Last week was one of those weeks with lots of day things–the temple, giving blood, a ministering interview, therapy–plus, you know, kids home. Which continues to be not good for concentration. (Oh, and on Friday night all of us but my son saw another teen edition of “Six” with my second girlie’s friend in it. On Saturday my oldest and I–and my hubby, for much of it–watched “Evita”, but “Six” is still what’s in our heads.)

On the other hand, I did end up finishing Katherine Center’s Hello Stranger over the weekend, so there’s that. And yowsers, what a ride! If you’re not familiar with face blindness as a medical condition, you’ll have to google it, but if you are, the plot potential in the concept of a portrait artist being diagnosed with probably temporary face blindness should strike you pretty much immediately. Throw in family difficulties, an aging dog, and some overdue therapy, and you have Sadie Montgomery’s story.

I will say that this novel requires more suspension of disbelief than many; on the other hand, Center does provide (relatively) reasonable explanations of as many things as she can. The ending is satisfying, and there’s enough resolution with the antagonist that I was fine with it; overall, it’s maybe not my very favorite Center novel, but it’s still worth your time. (If you’re a fan of women’s fiction with a definite romantic element, that is. If that’s not your thing, you may not want to go there.)

In the meantime, I’ve got to gather library books due tomorrow and do whiteboards with the kiddos to plan out our day. But I did get a lot done in my food room on Saturday while my hubby took those kiddos to Taylorsville Dayz! Here’s wishing y’all luck in your own endeavors for the day…

Since I’m clearly struggling with my M/W/F posting schedule, should I accept reality–maybe just for the summer, maybe not–and switch to T/Th? I’m pondering.

I have zero regrets about the time we spent with friends that moved out of the neighborhood in January, which was lovely and involved most of yesterday afternoon. And I managed to hit the post office yesterday morning, since my great-nephew is apparently obsessed with a book series that we owned four of but weren’t passionate about. (Britt passed some of the books down to us, but only my younger two were still young enough, and neither one was terribly into them. I actually thought they were fun, but I’d rather pass them on to a passionate fan!) Today I have errands staring me in the face, but since one of them is returning library books, I wanted to review Wendy Xu’s Tidesong.

Meh.

I wanted to really like it, you know? Water dragons and mythology and a girl main character trying to find her confidence, etc. Unfortunately, I was just as annoyed as I was entertained. Sophie is sometimes likable but often not–the stereotypical “I’m going to ignore everything my experienced relatives tell me and do what I want without regard for the consequences” character. Xu’s technique for showing us the dark voices of insecurity and pressure in Sophie’s head isn’t bad, but–I’m not sure it makes her appreciably more likable. As for the adults–most of them start out as just plain mean, and the ones that change do so too suddenly and completely for believability. Sophie’s relationship with the water dragon is meant to outlast her mistakes, but it wants more development to make that realistic.

Really, the phrase ‘wants more development’ is probably the best way to sum up Tidesong. There’s potential there, and its intended audience might not mind how abruptly the plot moves along, but older readers will–mind, that is. The art is often enjoyable (although Sophie’s hair is a bit much for me), but the story needs more fleshing out. Any readers out there want to comment on their impressions?

Well. After some emotional struggles and the hecticness (yeah, not a word, I know) of making sure three kids were ready to leave for camp for a few days, yesterday was INCREDIBLY quiet. My youngest and I met my hubby for lunch yesterday and then had a read-a-thon when we got home…except that mine involved quite the nap in the middle of it. After she went to bed he and I watched the first half of “Hamilton” before heading off ourselves, which was impressive (even if the lyrics were sometimes hard to understand, although that’s a common difficulty in musicals); we lost power for a while before getting to sleep, but we did sleep pretty well.

This morning Britt and I met with our respective youngests for breakfast at Waffle Love, after which she helped me go through emails while I did dishes and sorted through papers; when they left, the young one and I played Skyjo, read for a bit more, and are heading off to Panda shortly. One nice thing is that I actually finished the 6th ‘Dragonbreath’ book, Revenge of the Horned Bunnies, and it was both lighter than the last one and beautifully hilarious. Danny, Wendell, and Christiana are joined by Danny’s annoying younger cousin Spencer at summer camp, where they discover nefarious doings and a horde of jackalopes. By the end, wrongs have been righted, lanyards made (although, sadly, not the Chinese Throwing Lanyard of Death), and Spencer has gotten considerably less annoying. If you haven’t read anything by Ursula Vernon yet, well–what are you waiting for?

In other news, kids get home tomorrow (camps were short) and my youngest has a piano recital. It’s always a party in Taylorsville!

No, I didn’t eat all the plums. And they’re not in the fridge, anyway–they’re sitting on the table.

I almost didn’t post today at all, to be honest with you, because it’s been a rough couple of days. On the other hand, my son finished reading Kate McMullan’s ‘Dragon Slayers Academy’ series today, and I have to give it a shoutout before the last book goes back to the library. My son doesn’t love reading, and he doesn’t love fantasy, but he’s chosen to keep reading DSA anyway. They’re short (not much over a hundred pages each) and approachable for more reluctant readers, and yet they’re entertaining and clever enough that I’ve kept up with him as he’s read them. They have enough of the ick factor to be appealing to elementary school boys (that’s when my son started the series) without bothering me, and–well, they’re hilarious. Please give the story of Wiglaf, his pig Daisy, and the rest of the students at DSA a try. You’ll be glad you did!

Because they’re supposed to remember everything, right? Except that it isn’t so much that I’m FORGETTING to post; it’s more that it’s distracting when kids are home, I’m truly trying to work on projects, and I’m too tired to concentrate an unfortunate amount of the time. (And I’ve been gone. I’ve been to the temple two mornings this week and to the school to meet with the principal one.) I did just finish listening to the audio fluff I’ve been distracting myself with, however, and so I figured I’d better just get the review over with. Because MEH.

Summer Ever After was available immediately and had a premise with promise–Jane is lonely, and since she loves romance novels, she comes up with a dating plan and decides to apply romance tropes to her dates. Her dating pool is small, since she doesn’t want to leave the small island she’s lived on all her life (which necessitates dating men who live there and plan to stay there, most of whom she’s known all of her life), but she starts out with plans. (The tropes get more painfully forced as she goes along, but she does have plans.)

Unfortunately, she’s had some level of crush on her best friend’s older brother since middle school. This is problematic because a)he’s a golf pro who travels a lot and doesn’t live on the island when he’s not traveling, and b)when his family moved to the island, girls pretended to be friends with his younger sister to get to know him, so she was sensitive about it. If I were Kortney Keisel, I would have concentrated a lot harder on the first issue rather than the second, because 3/4 of a book is really too long to spend focusing on the obstacle of “I can’t date him because it would break her heart, we can’t date because she wouldn’t approve, etc.” Seriously? They signed a BFF pact in middle school, sure, but that’s not a strong enough plot device to take seriously for that long.

The other problem we’re dealing with* is Keisel’s metaphors and similes. Is she aiming for over-the-top cheese for the laugh? I can’t quote any of them since I listened to the book without a physical copy to reference, but they were definitely too far over the top–they took me out of the moment, which is kind of death for a romance novel.

*There’s actually a third problem, but it’s probably a harder line to find for an adult novel. Summer Ever After is marketed as a “sweet” romantic comedy, which means (more or less) that any sex is happening off the page. The problem is that Keisel’s a bit heavy handed with talk of desire and passion to just not address the ‘are they or aren’t they’ issue. I’m perfectly happy for there to be no sex happening while dating, but avoiding the topic completely was not the way to go. Since we’re doing elephant metaphors, it’s the equivalent of inviting the elephant into the room and then refusing to acknowledge it. I get that having your main couple talk about it is more work, but either leave the elephant out or invite it to the table.

Anyway. It looks like each book in the series has a different author, so I’m pondering giving the second one a try out of morbid curiosity, but I’m not going to be actively seeking out any more Keisel novels. Summer Ever After was distracting, yes, but it was a little too fluffy for me.