Hands down, easiest life-guard gig ever. Double bonus: no sand in hard to reach places and no need for a bath tonight. Oh, we are so doing this again tomorrow.
I love to read. Absolutely love, love, love it. I can inhale books in a matter of hours if its good enough. And it’s doubly good enough, I’ll read it again and again (hello, Time Traveler’s Wife!).
But. . . I’m out of books at the moment. I had a really rough patch where I wasn’t reading anything that wasn’t related to human anatomy and medical terminology. While fascinating and educational, I’m looking for something that’s going to make me shirk my wifely duties, motherly responsibilities, and personal hygiene. I want a book so good that I am using cocktail toothpicks to prop open my eyes as I read far into the night. And when I turn the last page, I want to feel swollen with satisfaction and the sharp smack of my hand as it hits my head when I realize, “I totally could have written this!”
The last book I read was “Eat, Pray, Love” and I slogged through it — sorry you Liz Gilbert fans. She had me in Italy, but when she got to India, I got very bored. Indonesia was redemptive, but by that point, I really wanted to just put the whole thing to bed and done with her. Hence the burning need for something I can really just burrow myself into.
I was tempted to pick up “The Time Traveler’s Wife” yet again, but I did read it fairly recently and it seems a little too soon. I thumbed through the books on my shelf: nothing. My wish-list at paperbackswap.com and at shelfari.com are just that — wishes. At PBS, the books I’m waiting on have an ETA on average of 17 weeks. WTH?
I thought about the library, but it’s tough to peruse the shelves at a leisurely pace with Mo and Co in tow. They haven’t quite figured out that a library is a quiet place and their volume control only goes in one direction — guess which one.
My dad reads quite a bit and I thought he might have some titles that I could borrow, but I already plowed through his collection of Mad Magazine Anthologies (very though provoking), Elmore Leonard, Stephen Carter, and others. My mom doesn’t read books, mostly magazines, but she did have a few titles near her desk. I perused those, settling on one that I had read before, but knew that I enjoyed. As soon as I cracked it open, I got giddy.
Yes. . .I’ll admit it.
I’m reading “Twilight” again*.
*well, technically, it’s Eclipse, so it’s not like I’m starting all the way at the beginning. . .
Today, the girls had a playdate with one their little friends. The friend is Morgan’s age and she, too, has a little sister, who is a year younger than Coever. Coever wants no parts of the little sister and is more than happy to insert herself in the mix with Morgan and the Big Sister friend.
For a while, Host Mom and I sat in her living room talking about this, that and other thing. Somehow, we got on the topic of playdates gone awry, always an exercise in who can pull out the most embarrassing/horrendous/outlandish/otherwise humiliating experience. I feel like “Top That” should be playing in the background.
She told me about a friend of hers whose daughter cut the hair of another child during a playdate. We laughed, trying to think of ways to explain ourselves to the other parent in a situation like that. Host Mom went on to say that one time, her own mother had hosted some children, and sent the children home completely unawares that the children had gone into her jewelry box and be-dazzled themselves with her best stuff. Thankfully, the visiting mother realized she had jewel thieves in her midst and returned it all post-haste.
At least, I think it was Coever.
I thought it was Cesar Romero at first.
In any event, all Host Mom and I could do was laugh. I mean, really, should we even be surprised that this is what went down when we all but guaranteed something was bound to happen just by sheer revelry in the previous conversation?
Miraculously, the bathroom, where they had pilfered the make-up from, was clean as was the room in which they applied it. Morgan and Big Sister had a much light hand when it came to application, contenting themselves with several layers of lipstick and limiting the blush to only one side of their faces from brow bone to jawline. Nice.
But here’s the weird thing — about a year ago, Morgan did this photo shoot where she was given carte blanche to have at it with some make-up. Neither one of them has seen the photo, I don’t think, but their make-up application is strangely similar. Check it out here.
Cesar Romero, right?
I took the girls to a birthday party the other day where, over the course of the event, they saw me holding another guests’ baby sister. Later on today, we were sitting on the couch having a snack and reading some books, when Morgan asked me why I had been holding the baby. I put the book down and told her that while I always love holding her and her sister, sometimes it’s nice to hold babies.
She thought that over for a minute before saying, “Oh.”
Cautiously, I asked her, “Do you think maybe you’d like to have another sister or a brother some day?” — emphasis on “maybe”, “some” and “day”.
“Um, I’d like another sister, and another sister, AND a brother”, she said. “A brown brother.”
Coever, who had been listening the whole time said, “I don’t want a brown brother. I don’t want another sister. I want that sister.”
“Which sister?” I ask.
“Just Morgan.”
Just Morgan, just Coever. That’s sounds like just enough.
