Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I was going to make an effort to finish a book today, friends, but instead, my fantastic neighbor called to say she was heading to the dump, and did we have anything to add to her load? So she and I loaded up the old bunk bed plus a bunch of trimmed branches from the pine tree, at which point I had to switch laundry and head to Costco. After Costco I could have read over lunch, only my 16-year-old missed her bus and so I picked her up and then had to head out to pick up my youngest, so I pretty much ate in the car (and, just a little bit, standing up in my kitchen). Once we got home I worked on dinner, went on my walk, and then finished making dinner and did dishes. And THEN I took my youngest to dance, dropped off a due library book, and did my Duolingo in the car outside the dance teacher’s house. Good times! When I got home I had clean sheets to put on my bed and the youngest to tuck in, and–you get the idea.

On the other hand, I’ve been trying use up some oatmeal (I ended up with extra), and since we’d already had oatmeal pancakes, I made this Brownie Baked Oatmeal for dinner last night. I didn’t make it vegan, because we’re not vegan and I wanted to use up actual milk anyway, but other than that I sort of followed the recipe. (By sort of I mean I left out the pecans, because I prefer my oldest alive, and I didn’t add coconut, because my youngest would have flat out revolted. Oh, and I made do with regular yogurt, because we didn’t have Greek.) It would have been great with coconut, but oh, well. As it was, it made for a pretty chocolatey dinner that was much healthier than you might have thought; if you want to feed your family oatmeal and some of them are picky about it, it’s worth making.

And now the exercise bike and then the shower are calling my name. Goodnight all!

I didn’t manage to post yesterday–it was our January PTA meeting, and that (plus conversations afterwards) absorbed most of the morning–but I did manage to finish reading Planet Omar: Incredible Rescue Mission aloud to my soon-to-be-11-year-old. It’s a fun series to read aloud, especially when your kiddo is right next to you enjoying the art (which runs the gamut from illustrations of the action to embellishments of single words to enhance the storytelling). It’s also a fun series, period–Omar and his friends and family are likable and entertaining, and their thought processes are appreciatable (yes, I know it’s not a word, but I’m over it) by kids and adults alike. (In different ways, of course. And clearly it’s a parentheses sort of day.)

In Incredible Rescue Mission, Omar and his friends are horrified to find their fantastic teacher replaced by a cranky sub, who says she’ll be their teacher for the rest of the year. Omar’s sure Mrs. Hutchinson has been abducted by aliens, and while one of his friends thinks that’s a crazy idea, they still decide to investigate the possibility. Only when Omar and his family take a trip to Pakistan for a relative’s wedding, that means their investigation is on hold–right?

Both my girlie and I could see the real solution to Mrs. Hutchinson’s disappearance, but in some ways that only added to the fun. The ‘Planet Omar’ books do a fantastic job of telling entertaining stories about a regular kid and his family, who just happen to be both British and Pakistani. We need more books for kids that focus on how much we have in common, no matter our ancestry. Yay for ‘Planet Omar’!

(Okay, that was totally cheesy and an unimpressive ending, but my family’s watching a sports thing five feet away, and concentrating has become a challenge. Bottom line? Try out the series–it’s totally worth your time.)

Years ago, when I was reading All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team aloud with my second girlie, she (and to a lesser extent my husband, who was in the room and–apparently–listening) begged me not to leave those boys in the cave while she went off to whichever church camp was coming up. We therefore read something like 90 pages in one night to finish it up (me butchering Thai names the whole way, I’m sure), which left my voice slightly the worse for wear. Now that girlie is 16, and while she still enjoys reading with me (which makes my heart happy), she’s as busy as only a junior in high school can be. We started reading Kate O’Shaughnessy’s The Wrong Way Home together months ago, but she’s been so busy she hasn’t felt up to reading in quite some time. I’m just grateful for Christmas break, because we both made the effort to read more than once while she was out of school, and on Monday night we staged another reading marathon to finish before the break was over. (She went back today, but last night she worked and had dance.) Some 70-odd pages later, we’re done with The Wrong Way Home, and if we do manage to start something else before the school year is over, it’s going to be much, much shorter–or perhaps a collection of short stories.

In the meantime, O’Shaughnessy’s novel makes for the third of 2025’s five Newberys that I’ve managed to finish before 2026’s get announced. (I suppose I could theoretically manage another one before the ALA Broadcast on the 26th, but that’s extremely unlikely to happen.) All three have been excellent but distinct from each other; The Wrong Way Home is contemporary, unlike most of Across So Many Seas, and the nature of Fern’s conflict is entirely different from Magnolia Wu’s. Fern’s mother has just taken Fern from the Ranch–an off-the-grid community in New York lead by the magnetic Dr. Ben, where they’ve lived for half of Fern’s life–across the country to Driftaway Beach, California, and Fern is horrified. How could her mother have taken them away from their home? She wants nothing so much as to get back to the Ranch and Dr. Ben, but since she doesn’t know its address or his last name, that’s going to be a difficult thing to manage. As she perseveres toward her goal, however, the outside world begins to seem not quite so awful of a place, and she begins to listen to what her mother is telling her about the ‘home’ they left behind. Is going back still truly what she wants?

I have to say, O’Shaughnessy does an impressive job with Fern’s painful journey from unquestioning belief to a broadening view of the world. The characters around her feel fully drawn and real and her dilemma emotionally fraught, which makes for a powerful (although frequently uncomfortable) read. The ending, however, is both compelling and satisfying; overall, The Wrong Way Home is an unforgettable reading experience.

You’ll have to tell me what you think of it.

In the meantime, the kiddos are back in school and I’ve run my errands and taken my walk for the day. I have PTA business tomorrow and Friday–I had it this morning as well–so wish me luck with my chores for the week!

I usually have fun with the ‘Baby-sitters Little Sister’ graphic novels, although they’re short and fast enough reads that I usually don’t bother reviewing them; I finished Karen’s Prize over the weekend, however, and parts of it annoyed me so much that I decided I needed at least a short post to review it.

Here’s the thing. It’s completely within Karen’s character to get carried away with winning a spelling bee and then practicing more to win more and getting even more carried away; she’s the kind of big personality that doesn’t necessarily realize when it’s crossing the line into obnoxious and/or show-offy behavior. (Which is pretty much the plot right there, so my brief summary is taken care of!) What seriously annoyed me were the multiple scenes in which Karen is downright rude and the adult(s) in the room look at her or each other with distressed/sad faces–and say NOTHING. Sure, there are instances where the behavior is riding the line and interfering might be problematic, but there is more than one instance where it’s over the line and the adults are looking all sad about it, like there’s somehow nothing to be done when a mild mention of being gracious or not being a sore winner hasn’t sufficed. She’s in second grade, and she’s got 4 parents plus a teacher. It’s squarely the fault of the adults in her life that her behavior gets so bad and goes on for so long.

My other, smaller beef is the unevenness of her friends’ behavior. They’re so loyal at the beginning, and while it makes sense that Karen’s continued obnoxiousness wears on them, the shift to upset is very unevenly portrayed. I’m honestly not sure how my youngest is going to feel about this one, but it was a highly frustrating read for me.

In the meantime, it’s the last day of Christmas break and three of my children have plans with friends, which is going to involve some chauffeuring on my part; my hope is that they’ll have fun and get worn out enough that they’ll sleep early and well tonight. Cross your fingers for me!

That’s the anniversary we hit yesterday, folks. My in-laws are out of town, so our kiddos weren’t staying with them, but we did go out to dinner! When we got home, I sat down at the puzzle table to work on it and ended up staying long enough to finish Save Me a Seat, by Sarah Weeks and Gina Varadarajan. It’s one of the few Battle of the Books titles left for my youngest and me to read, so she should be happy that I’m ready to pass it on.

I have to say, I do have some mixed feelings about it, although it was objectively quite a good book. I was certainly made fun of in elementary school, and I hate being laughed at–a trait more than one of my children shares with me. (My much-older brother also teased me quite a bit, which likely contributed to the problem.) I therefore don’t enjoy reading about kids being mean to other kids, and since Save Me a Seat involves both a bully and–for the first half of the book–a bully-ish attitude on Ravi’s part, I was dreading it. In fact, I’m not entirely sure I would have been able to push through it if I hadn’t discovered that the entire book occurs over the course of a week; the fact that none of it was drawn out helped a lot. I did just hurt for Joe, though–having a bully, Auditory Processing Disorder, AND somewhat clueless parents is a lot for a kid. By contrast, I wanted to smack Ravi for much of the first half of the book, because when your attitude is both arrogant and casually cruel, it’s hard for me to feel sympathy for you. Weeks and Varadarajan do a fantastic job of both making Ravi three-dimensional from the beginning and portraying his growth as a character, however, and so even when I wanted to smack him, I still (mostly) liked him. The unique hook of telling an intertwined story of two characters who don’t actually talk to each other until after the book ends is clever and provides interesting possibilities, but it does mean that despite a friendship between them being the clear destination of the story, that friendship isn’t a present character I can emotionally invest in. Overall, it really is quite a good book, and I’m grateful for the experience of reading it; on the other hand, I’m not sure it has a lot of re-read appeal for me.

Do with that what you will.

After an exhausting day yesterday, I should have been able to sleep in, right? Yeah, that’d be a no. I woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t manage to get back to sleep; after laying there, doing my daily word puzzles, looking a few things up on my phone, and remaining (most frustratingly) awake, I finally got up and settled down in my fluffy bathrobe to finish another graphic novel. (Okay, READ a graphic novel. I started it long enough ago and got so few pages into it, I ended up just restarting it.) I’ve been looking at my Goodreads list of books I started and then got distracted and never finished, and the second ‘Racc Pack’ novel–Prince and the Pawper–seemed both the shortest and the easiest to grab in the dark.

Thankfully, it was both a quick read and a fun one, in an elementary-school-fluff kind of way. The raccoon brothers (one of whom looks suspiciously like a possum) are back, this time agog at the news of a racoon being featured at a local Pet Expo. Determined to figure out how Prince the Raccoon has gotten humans to love him, they sneak in; the rest is indeed a retelling of The Prince and the Pauper. There’s more depth to this than your average cheesy graphic novel (although Raina Telgemeier it most certainly is not), so if you’ve got a reluctant reader who likes graphic novels but doesn’t want to engage with the more ‘coming of age’ type, this is a good pick. (Or if you’ve got a graphic novel-obsessed child who wants as many as she can get her hands on.)

Anyway. I did manage to doze back off for a while, but I’m not ruling out a possible afternoon nap today. In the meantime, I have errands to run, so I’ve got to go make myself presentable. Signing off!

To be honest, we all are. Today we took apart the double bunk bed in the girls’ room and put together a new triple bunk bed–to be fair, my hubby and son mostly did that–which involved ridiculous amounts of cleaning and moving stuff around, not to mention the washing of much, much bedding. Also, I woke up at 6:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so there’s that.

SO. Quick recap–we drove to Idaho for Christmas on the 23rd and drove home on the 27; Christmas with my parents was quiet but a different kind of lovely, and the weather was so ridiculously warm that my oldest took her youngest sister on two different bike rides. Santa came and everything went well for Christmas, even though it was a bit smaller of a Christmas than we’ve had the last few years. As my Grandpa Mather used to say, the Lord sure has been good to us.

We stopped in Clearfield on the way home to watch the second half of BYU’s bowl game, which was stressful but ultimately triumphant, and then yesterday our ward boundaries got completely realigned. As in, our ward is now our entire neighborhood, I have multiple PTA friends in the ward now, and our children and youth programs have grown significantly. (Not that it would take much, you understand.) It’s all very exciting for us, since we didn’t lose anyone, but those that had their wards dissolved are understandably struggling to some degree. Sunday will be interesting!

Anyway. I did manage to finish listening to Elana K. Arnold’s Harriet Spies today, mostly because it was short and we all kind of tapped out around 4. Normally, I avoid main characters who struggle with lying, because they drive me crazy; Arnold does such a good job with, however–in first person, no less!–that I still enjoyed the book. (Although if it were longer and the situation more drawn out, I’d probably have struggled.) Harriet is still on Marble Island with her grandmother while her mother is on bedrest, but this time she and the Captain butt heads in a way that ultimately endangers a new friendship. All does turn out well, in a realistic, satisfying sort of way, and since Harriet’s dad drops a verbal bomb toward the end, I’m rather anxious to read the next one. In the meantime, I’m beat and I want to be in bed earlier tonight, so goodnight all!

Okay, so it’s not quite 2:30 in the afternoon, but my point is that after this post I’m signing off for the holiday week. (I’ll be busy.) In the meantime, we had a lovely Christmas program at church yesterday, at which my hubby played the organ and my oldest helped narrate and then played the harp with my hubby as piano accompaniment. Our family watched “Klaus” together last night, which was fun, and before bed I finished reading Jessixa and Aaron Bagley’s Dear Jackie, which I was considering for my 16-year-old for Christmas.

Here’s the thing. When I tell you I did not enjoy it, I need to immediately add that, objectively, it’s at least a 3.5 star graphic novel. I’ve always struggled with plots involving people who lie to make themselves cooler to other people, however, and I hate the inevitable fallout. (How can you enjoy anything when you know it’s bound to end badly?) Jackie’s pretend love letters to herself were not a plot element I was ever going to enjoy. Added to that, however, was the spate of unkindness by various middle schoolers, which was realistic but painful for me to read about. The seemingly endless drama of who likes whom and what should be done about it was bad enough, but the mean “friends” who claimed to be just teasing were worse. Again, realistic, but SO painful. I suppose I feel about Dear Jackie the same way I felt about Raina Telgemeier’s Drama–they’re both full of realistic middle school drama and experiences, but dang it, I’ve EARNED THE RIGHT not to relive junior high any more than my parenting responsibilities make me have to. I lived through it, I survived, and so help me, I am not going back there.

Anyway. Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to all, folks–I wish you all peace and joy. See you next week!

The one thing about having a child home sick is that it’s easier to finish the book you and that child are reading together; yesterday morning I finished reading Mary Amato’s Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook aloud to my 10-year-old, and I ended up really liking it. Edgar does come across as whiny at first–although the book’s intended audience is not likely to be bothered–but as he gains confidence and makes connections with a few of his classmates, he becomes more of a delight than anything else. As he and other elementary school students investigate a string of school thefts which include poems left by the thief, Edgar also gains a better relationship with his family. AND the thief’s poems are parodies of famous ones, which I quite enjoyed! I wish I’d known about this one when my mystery-loving oldest was in elementary school.

I recommend.

In the meantime, I took care of the most pressing PTA business this morning and now I should be home for the duration–unless I have to go pick up my 16-year-old, who says her stomach is acting up. Because it’s that time of year, of course. How is Christmas Eve a week from today???

Mind you, I’m desperately grateful that this year’s plague isn’t the horrible 48 hour stomach nightmare of last December, but my youngest two are coughing and miserable. I’m just hoping that it stops with them.

In the meantime, I spent Friday Christmas shopping and getting things done, Saturday was a day of madness that included a baby shower and the shopping for that, and yesterday both of my younger kiddos were home. (Only my youngest is home today; her brother took cold medicine and went to school in a mask.) I did, however, finish reading Doreen Rappaport and Joan Verniero’s Victory or Death! Stories of the American Revolution (which is expensive enough new that I didn’t bother linking it here) last night before bed, which means it can go back to the library with me today.

As for what I thought of it? I’m afraid that I was familiar with most (though not all) of the stories told, and so the amount of new information it provided me was small. I wouldn’t necessarily blame that on the book, though–when you grow up in one of the original 13 colonies, you do get more colonial and revolutionary war history in school. What I would say is that at just over 100 pages, this is a good book for elementary schoolers with little previous specific knowledge of the American Revolution, and the ‘Acknowledgements’ at the end do an excellent job of laying out what was quoted and what had to be extrapolated from all available research. If you’re in need of this book, it does look to be available used for a reasonable price, but it’s too young for anyone but my youngest. (Although she said she’d read it, so I guess it’s not going back to the library today after all.) In the meantime, good luck with all of your holiday preparations, and I hope your families aren’t fighting the plague!