Heavenly Summer Reading

Do you guys do summer reading lists or programs or anything?  In the past, we've not really followed any plans in particular, mostly since summer stayed fairly equal to the rest of the year in our pre-school lives.  Now, though, with Kindergarten under our belts, I'm excited for the free time we're finding hidden throughout our days. 

Beyond lazing around on the floor doing art projects and chasing the neighbor-boy around the street, we have a lot more time to read.  Days are freer.  Nights are lazier.  We're basking in the nothingness of summer while trying to keep the (dadgum) house clean for potential buyers. 

So books have become my favorite part of summer so far, and we're only two weeks into our break.  The other day, I stopped by the bookstore with a plan to give myself some fabulous new novels, but instead, I accidentally walked out of the store with a short stack of books for the girls.  I should be using the library, but the thought of three kids + the library is overwhelming my sensibilities.  Instead, I'm racking up a large book bill.  But that's not the point.  The point is, I came home with a summer reading bundle.  Here's what's on our shelf:

1. Matilda by Roald Dahl.  This one is going to be saved for last, I think, because Lauren is still a little antsy during chapter books.  Matilda, if I remember right, has some heavy themes that might take more concentration.  Plus, she's heard about Miss Trunchbull -- I think she saw parts of the movie at my aunt's house awhile back -- and bad-ladies scare her.  In book form, her fear might not be so bad, but if it doesn't work for Lauren, I still think Mia will enjoy it for some special Mama & Mia time.

2. The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley.  This book caught my eye because it's part of a big series.  Two sisters become detectives on adventures which last through at least 10 books: perfect for my two girls, I think.  We're reading it right now, and it's caught our imaginations and attention very well!

3. Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary.  We finished this book in a few days, so I'm fairly sure we'll be reading more of the series soon to keep our summer entertaining.  Lauren LOVED Ramona and her loud, sticky, stubborn ways, while Mia laughed at how much Ramona irritated Beezus.  But the message behind the story -- that it's okay for sisters to not always be best friends -- made me say oh, thank goodness.  It was really JUST what my tired-mama ears needed to hear.  Thanks, Beverly Cleary :)

4. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall.  I know almost nothing about this book, but it looked like a good one!  It won a National Book Award, though, and has gotten wonderful reviews, promising excellently crafted writing and an engaging, humorous plot for all ages, parents included.  The Penderwicks are four sisters who travel to an estate in Massachusetts for a summer vacation, and get themselves into charming adventures while there.  I'm really excited to read this book with the girls!

So what do you think?  Will you be reading anything in particular this summer with your kids?  Have you read any of our choices?  And do you think it's okay for me to start reading The Penderwicks tonight by myself so I don't have to wait any longer?

Serenading a House

Oh, friends.  It started as a weekend of deep cleaning to get our house ready to go on the market, and it's ended with a napless baby, a clingy, back-talking Lauren, a distracted mama, and a focused daddy.  Mia is the only one of us who is running strong on all burners, and I'm super-double glad for that much.  She's excited and helpful and talkative and funny.

I'm exhausted and anxious and hiding my emotions by yelling too much.

But the house!  It looks GORGEOUS in here, you guys.  I looked around yesterday at our spotless living space, and declared this the perfect place to live.  I would totally buy this house.  If we hadn't already decided to sell it, that is.  But it's perfect.  There's not a speck, not a fluff, not a trail of dust in the whole place.  No clutter, either; we've cleared out about half of our belongings to make it seem open and airy and available. 

And we had plenty of help, too.  Our mothers washed windows and screens, scrubbed blinds and shades, dusted fan blades and shelves.  My aunt came over, tools in hand, unbidden, and began raking out our overgrown flower beds.  They are now pristine. 

I say again, I want to live here.  I do.  I don't want to goooo.  Only, we've made an offer on another, larger house, which the owners have accepted.  So our time is short.  Sob.

Last night, falling asleep in a clutter-free bedroom, in a dust-free house, on a manicured plot of land, I dreamed  I was auditioning for a musical show.  I climbed up on the stage, which actually turned out to be our roof, and belted my song for the judges.  My voice was pure and passionate.  I became the song, as sometimes happens in dreams -- my soul swelled with the notes. 

So cheesy, yes, and so revealing.  I sang to the house: And I.....will always love you...my darling you...  I was better than Whitney.  I was truer than Dolly.  I was the song and the song was me and the house, oh, the house, she sighed and pulsed with my singing.

I got the part in the musical, of course.  I was talented beyond measure.  But when it was time for the performance, with my name spelled in lights at the box office, I couldn't remember the words.  They faded as I moved further away from the house. 

And now you are free to question my mental stability, as you've probably already done many times by now.  I won't judge you.  I'll just please ask you to pass me a tissue while I gaze longingly at my clean, lonely home while we prepare drive away someday soon.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Sneaky Daughters and Pointless Blabber

Hoping for inspiration to strike yesterday, I uploaded a handful of photos from the holiday weekend.  Tree planting with Nana and Grandpa; the first swim of the season; a gooey s'more.  I thought seeing the photos all in the same place would spark an idea.  Something to write about and share.  And as soon as the photos appeared, fate intervened in the form of Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my front door.

The same, sweet lady has been visiting us for several years now, so we're friendly and ended up chatting for a few minutes.  We talked about how we're getting ready to put our house on the market, about tricks for home staging, about the kids and the state of motherhood.  About life and peace.

After she left, I finished up a few chores, played with the kids, nursed the baby.

When I finally came back around to the computer, I saw that someone had published my weekend photos.  Not me, who'd been busy with everything else.  Not Mia, who'd been busy chasing the neighbor boy around the house. 

It could only have been this wild-child.  This Lauren-child, who loves to practice her computer-mouse skills, who loves to type on her 'blog' and who loves to sneak away with forbidden things.

So I did what any good blogger would do, and deleted the evidence.  Pulled down the post of pictures, hoping that an empty post -- no title, no words -- wouldn't confuse the whole world.  (Because I'm that sure of my importance...)

But now, for lack of anything better to do with them, I'm reposting the photos.  Because they are cute reminders of our fun weekend (and our diaper-swimming boy).



You can thank Lauren and her sneaky-happy-button-pushing ways, and you can thank the Jehovah's Witnesses, and you can thank Memorial Day Weekend.

Just don't thank me -- because I am clearly fresh out of creative inspiration, so you've been left with pointless blabber.

But if you can't do pointless blabber on a Friday, when can you?!

Bigger Picture Moment: Glowing

The sun is late in the sky, low but not dark, falling but not fallen.  Trees across the valley block the glare, but the heat still hits us right in the face.  Too hot for May, I worry.  The summer will be miserable. 

But we are beside the creek, where the breeze blows cool and wet, smelling of moss and fish and mud: fresh and alive.  The water ripples and swirls against the steep banks.  Leaves rustle overhead in an echoing song.  Rush and gush.  Shhhhh and Fwhhhhh. 

The shade is nice, I think, but it darkens the place, muting the sunset into something dull.  The girls are digging holes and giggling and being the opposite of dull.  Daddy and Landon are tickling and throwing and being utterly un-dull.  The water is alive and rushing and contradicting dullness with every wave. 

I move to the bluff overlooking the creek.  Here, the sun touches the water, throwing handfuls of glitter at the surface.  The white lights jump at my eyes, and I blink, pained; the whole world is too bright.

I turn around.  Landon is in the air, soaking up the sunset's reflection and flying over our heads.  He's lit up and glowing.  Accepting the brightness, the heat, the breeze, the wetness, and shining it back to us as a smile. 

He removes the shadows from the shade, glowing with pure joy.  

I wrap this moment into a tight fist, curl it into a coil, pack it away, and save it for always.  And by the time we walk away from the creek and the glitters of light, the sun has set.  Fallen.  Because it knows we have bits of it perched on our hips and saved in our hearts.





We're seeing the Bigger Picture through simple moments -- moments that force us to stop and take notice of the ways our worlds are important, meaningful, and beautiful. Please join us at Jade's place today! Grab the button, link up, and read a few others to encourage them as they find the fullness in the simple

Lauren-rella

Cinderelly, Cinderelly
Night and day it's Cinderelly
Make the fire, fix the breakfast
Wash the dishes, do the mopping
And the sweeping and the dusting
They always keep her hopping
She goes around in circles
Till she's very, very dizzy
Still they holler
Keep a-busy Cinderelly!

We're cleaning today -- keeping ourselves hopping -- because...

because...

because...

we'll be trying to sell the house soon.

And that

 is all

I can say

about

that.

(Until I come here sobbing about the memories...be on the lookout for weepy Sarah.)

Just Write

They are arguing again. 

They are arguing again, and it's over nothing important.  Something stupidly inane enough to make me want to claw at my chest with irritation.  What is it about bickering that makes me so crazy?

I step out of my body in those moments and see a second Sarah.  One who is trapped in a dark, bricked box.  She pounds her fists and elbows against the walls, scratching at the corners.  Sparks fly from her fingers and toes, finding no tinder, dying on the floor.  She screams with her head thrown back and rips at her scalp with torn and bloodied fingers.  There is simply no escape, though, and nobody to hear her. 

She sinks to the floor, leans into a corner, and takes a shaky breath.  Whispers a threatening curse.

When I step back into my body, I feel better.  The steam is evaporating and all I am left with are two little girls, irritated girls, and I wonder:

are they trapped and clawing and yelling within their own boxes?

And relying on me to unhinge their walls? 

But no, the box for me is my patience.  It is where I keep my outbursts.  It is my secret place, where nobody can see me as I fall apart and apart and apart, swirling sand in a leftover tidepool. 

So the sisters aren't in boxes at all.  They are spinning wildly in free air, throwing scowls instead of disguising them.  Stomping on sibling toes instead of kicking against unmoving walls. 

For a minute, I envy them that freedom. 

And then I feel my throat, tight from a held-in scream, burning from a not-released cry, and it grounds me.  Like a lightning rod grounds a bolt of electric fire: it takes the heat and current, and moves it along to somewhere it cannot cause harm.

I bury the lightning in my belly, and move forward. 

They are sisters, and this is normal, and I carry the lightning so we don't all burn the house down with our feelings.





I'm linking up today with Heather for Just Write.  Because I just needed to write.  Sometimes it's my lightning pole...

Go check out all the people who are Just Writing at The Extraordinary Ordinary!  It's a veritable party of thought.  Good stuff.

Remember the Golden Rule?

The day we found out we’d be having a second daughter, I began filling my head with rose-colored dreams.  Never having had a sister of my own, I spun sugared webs camaraderie for my daughters’ future relationship.  These girls would be the very best of friends. 

And some days, they really are.  They can entertain themselves for hours with a companionship that feels easy and comfortable. 

Then, there are the other days.  The days that make me wonder if it wouldn’t be better to lock them in separate rooms just to get some relief from all the bickering.  My daughters – those lovable, tender souls born of the same family and held by the same hearts – are capable of volleying angry accusations back and forth as if they were sworn enemies. 

I step into their disagreements mostly unprepared; all I can think about in the heat of the moment is making it stop.  Stop the yelling, stop the meanness, stop the petty tattling.  I dole out consequences and take away items of conflict, all in the name of immediate peace.

But the heart of the matter isn’t about resolving that single issue.  Consequential peace is only external; it sloughs off at each new altercation.  The solution can’t be for one girl to grant an apology or one girl to lose her turn.  While those things work once (repeated into infinity), they don’t teach my daughters to get along independently of my involvement.  What is needed is some inherent, internal force of understanding.

Half the time, though, the instructions I give one sister are at direct odds with those I give the other.  I’ll tell the irritated kindergartner that it isn’t okay to demand silence from the preschooler who is happily singing a made-up song.  And then I’ll turn around and tell the preschooler that it’s important to sing quietly or privately, so as not to bother those around us. 

I even confuse myself with these solutions.  I don’t want my older daughter to be intolerant of a bit of joyful – if grating – noise from her sister, but I also don’t want to encourage my younger daughter to be irritating at the expense of other people’s comfort. 

So the arguments escalate while I ponder the correct course. 

Only recently has the solution hit me square in my spun-sugared mind: invoke the power of the golden rule.  ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ works like a gem in sibling disagreements, because almost every altercation needs dual solutions.  One sibling should have been more considerate and the other should have been more patient.  One sister should have spoken more kindly, and the other should have been slower to judge. 

Using the golden rule also has the added benefit of instilling an inherent understanding of consideration for others.  Deep commitment to treating others as you’d wish to be treated helps children learn how to get along without a parent needing to step in at each argument.  Even better, if learned early, application of the golden rule should stop the arguments from occurring in the first place.

Admittedly, this is beginning to sound as rose-colored as the dreams I was trying to blink away in the first place.  Call me a die-hard Pollyanna if you will, but teaching consideration for others is never wrong.  I feel confident that adopting the golden rule as our family’s most vital reminder will only help our daughters get along more peacefully in the future. 

[Originally published in The Joplin Globe.]