Joys of Motherhood

I can remember when I found out I was pregnant (the "baby" is now 9), one of the first things I imagined was reading to and with my child. I was going to share with her all of the books I enjoyed, and discover new books with her. Well, that was one of many things I imagined, along with getting my pre-baby body back, having picture-perfect family dinners...I'm sure if you have children, you understand the kind of ting I'm talking about. Most of it, of course, did not come to pass. The part about the books, however...

When she was a newborn, crying for food at all those middle-of-the night hours, I would read to her from whatever book I was reading at the time. The first was "Pride and Prejudice"--I go through all of Jane Austen's novels about every couple of years. Unlike the adults I know who enjoy discussing books, Joanna never interrupted when I would wax eloquent about a passage I'd just read to her. (Unless you count the occasional burp.) She was the same with books of archaeology, scandalous bodice rippers (there were some parts of these I did NOT read out loud!). And, lest you think that it was all her mother's taste in reading, I must say she got nearly as much from her father, who would read the sports pages to her in the wee hours, and talk to her about statistics and draft picks. In fact, one of the first things she learned, at the tender age of about four months, was to put her hands high over her head when someone yelled "Touchdown!"

I was thinking of all this the other night as we sat reading the last book she needs to finish by the end of the school year. We've been reading "Half Magic" by Edward Eager, and I'm glad she loves the story as much as I do. Do you remember when you were young enough to still believe that magic was possible? And how important it was that at least one adult in your world believed it, too? One of the things that really makes the story something other than a fairy tale, though, is that the charm always does everything by halves. The children in the story have to learn how to frame their wishes carefully to get exactly what they want. At the beginning of the book, before they've figured that out, one of them wishes that their cat could talk. It's a rather grumpy cat, and it gets even grumpier trying to make itself understood when it can't quite speak people-talk, nor yet meow properly. Joanna and I had a good laugh over the cat!

We then went on to have a very serious conversation about whether our cats might actually talk when there was no one around to hear them. Rather like Shrodinger's cat, I can't say yes or no--to answer the question would be to negate the condition of it. But we both agree that it is at least a possibility. Personally, I think they even answer the phone when we're not home, and tell the telemarketers that they're free to call whenever they want.

I retyped that last line 3 times, because the youngest cat Midnite used the keyboard as a shortcut to the window where she growled ferociously at one of our resident woodchucks. There is a whole family of them, and they are decimating Joanna's garden. We have live traps all over the yard, but all we've caught so far are birds, squirrels, and the dog's head. (She's too big to get her whole body in the trap.)

Tonight, however, I'm free to read on my own as Joanna is off a-visiting. I'm going through essays on Jane Austen's novel Persuasions, and then back to my review book. Yay weekends!

And it's only Tuesday...

Thinking I'd be able to multi-task this morning, during my last stint as a helper in the nurse's office at my daughter's school, I took a laptop from work, saved all the files I needed to a flash drive, and was feeling very virtuous last night...until I relized I left my flash drive, with my cell phone and calendar, sitting on my desk.

Therefore, I was forced to spend my 3-hour shift, between bandaging paper cuts and doling out ice packs, reading my latest review book. Reviewing for Library Journal has been a lot of fun this past year. I've read books that I might not have otherwise seen. The latest, of which I can say very little right now, is the best of the lot.

I was looking through the books that I've reviewed yesterday, thinking that I might look in the public library catalog to see how many of them were purchased. The first one I reviewed, "Nox dormienda", was a historical mystery set in first-century Londimium. The main character, Arcturus (yes, I am wondering whether there will be any references in future books to King Arthur) is a healer and has the ear of the governor. One of the things I liked about the book was the atmosphere--it was gritty and dirty, just like I'd imagine an outpost at the edge of the civilized world to be.

I also reviewed Jason Goodwin's third Inspector Yashim mystery. That series, with its air of eastern intrigue and slightly different world view, kept my interest til the end. (I'll admit now, if I'm losing interest in a book, I'll read the ending to see if I think it's worth plowing through the entire thing.)

I just discovered that I saved one of my reviews with the wrong title and author! I hope I didn't send it in that way! The title was the same as the first review I wrote; the book, about Catherine d'Medici. The author turned hers into a love story, which took a total suspension of belief for me to begin with, but once I got past that part, it was a good book. The author, Jeanne Kalogridis (the book: The Devil's Queen), writes an intesting blog here: http://www.historyisabitch.com/.

Now I'm off to read some more of my review book, and perhaps a couple more essays in one of the several volumes of Persuasions that I hope to catch up on this year. IT must be time to finish because one of the cats keeps walking across the keyboard, necessitating (?SP?) much retyping.

Summer ambitions

Here I am at the beginning of another summer, and I've managed to collect a pile of reading to get through. History, social commentary, biography, and several back issues of Persuasions that I want to finish before heading to Philadelphia this fall for the Jane Austen Society Annual General Meeting. Of course, this is in addition to working full time, painting and redecorating the living room, and researching for a paper on the effects of the anti-slavery movement on the women's rights movement in Western NY.

The cats, on the other hand, have no such ambitions. They will continue to lay around all day shedding hair, racing around like maniacs half the night, hunting bugs and dog food...