Stephan's nana & papa got him a Fisher-Price camera for Christmas and he's spent time wandering around snapping pictures. Gotta love seeing things from a 3 1/2-year-old's perspective
I started him his own Picasa site and if you'd like to see his first album, the link is here. I weeded through about 2/3rds of the pictures, most of the floor, wall or ceiling and a few too blurry to recognize.
Enjoy my budding photographer!
Finished The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault.
Billy has just taken his first post-college job, working as a lexicographer for a dictionary company. (Lexicographers are the people who define words.) While looking through some definitions for words (before deciding to include a word in the dictionary, they create folders for it and use instances where the word appears--for example, a few sentences from a book, so that they can see the word and the context), he finds an excerpt from a novel. That excerpt seems to be describing his office.
He and a coworker start to do a little more digging (because, really, who can resist a book that seems to be about their coworkers?) and it turns out that the book doesn't exist. Then they find some more pages from that same author, and a crime may have been committed.
Very fun mystery. And lexicography sounds pretty awesome. :)
Finished Safer by Sean Doolittle.
This book jumps back and forth over several months. It opens with the main character being arrested and goes on to explain how he's been set up (or so he says) by a neighbor of his, Roger, who is (of course) the most beloved man in town.
It's a very suspenseful book and I had a hard time putting it down. I wasn't crazy about the ending, but I may have just been exhausted from not ever wanting to put it down to do things like, say, sleep. :)
I'll see how I feel about it after a re-read. :)
We spent time with family. We ate italian sausages. We played a part in some couple's engagement story in front of the National Christmas tree. We opened our new pajamas. And I cried while trying to read our traditional Christmas books.
Or any other body part for that matter. Now it was another story for Alex and Josiah.....
I'd heard from several people, even perfect strangers, that three was actually worse than two. Maybe it's because I'm in the thick of the threes, but right now, the "terrible twos" look like a warm sunny day at the park.
Do I really have another half a year left??
Ok, that might be a teensy bit on the extreme side, but right now it seems like this hellish nightmare will never end. I feel like I'm always repeating myself (who's the broken record?) and even though my little boy knows he's not supposed to do *insert fill in the blank here*, he just can't seem to help himself. Add to that a side of open defiance, a dish of kicking and screaming and a dash of you can't make me, and it's a recipe for disaster.
We are working hard at being consistent and making sure we follow through, but what seemed to work fine and be effective ... even two weeks ago ... just is not cutting it anymore.
When we discovered we were pregnant, I signed up for the weekly pregnancy emails at babycenter.com and since they asked, I shared Stephan's information with them as well. This means that I also get several emails about the rambunctious toddler. Every once in a while something turns up useful, and sometimes, even at just the right time.
Being that I'm about ready to pull my hair out, Christmas is around the corner, and I really do want to enjoy my last break before the business hits and baby comes in the spring, I was thankful for this series of articles on time-outs and toddler discipline. (I'm a little freaked that they are geared toward threes and fours, but eventually something's got to give, right?
- Time-outs: How to make them work (ages 3-4)
- What to do when time-outs don't work (ages 3-4)
- Moving beyond threats (ages 3-4)
- Alternatives to threats (ages 3-4)
Each of these builds on the other and provides some great ideas and strategies, and provided some small changes that will hopefully make a HUGE impact.
My biggest issue is keeping my cool. I'm already frustrated and stressed about the whole situation and really will need to work hard at keeping that out of the equation. No sense adding to the drama. I'm hopeful gaining some additional tips on discipline now that he's changing things up a bit will make all the difference.
So here's to a better tomorrow!
Finished The Christmas Lamp by Lori Copeland.
I think this is another example of "books I like because I am completely exhausted and they are easy and sweet." And also, in this case, seasonally appropriate. :)
Roni lives and works in Nativity, Missouri. The little town isn't doing so well (not many tourists; businesses are closing) and someone's just arrived to help cut expenditures, a guy named Jake.
It's a sweet story and it ends happily. :) It's a little less than realistic, but it's Christmas, so who cares, right? :)
Finished The Sweet By and By by Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck for Thomas Nelson.
Jade is about to get married but there's a sticking point--she has to decide whether to invite her mother to the wedding. She's been estranged from her mother (Beryl) for years, and she isn't sure whether it's worth the drama to have her there. Beryl used to be a hippie and spent much of her three kids' childhoods on the road with one musician boyfriend (or husband) or another.
You should know that this is Christian fiction, although that wasn't too noticeable until the end. So if that would bug you, this probably isn't a book you'd enjoy. (Although you'd probably like it until the end.)
I liked the pacing of the book a great deal. The details of Jade and Beryl's relationship was revealed in a timely fashion and there was a decent twist that kept changing everything.
I read the book yesterday, after I was exhausted from being at work for 30 hours. Would I have liked it this much if it weren't essentially the literary equivalent of comfort food? I'm not sure. But I read this book at the perfect time, and I really enjoyed it.
It's probably also good that I read it right before Christmas, since the book's main themes are about love and forgiveness.
If there is anything my mother isn't known for, it's being graceful on her feet. My mother trips and bumbles over the smallest things, sometimes over nothing at all.
