Katrina at Callipiddar days is hosting a reading challenge!  Check out her page to find out how you can be a part of the challenge.

Because I love to read more than almost anything else, when I have an excuse to read more and read LOTS it gets me very excited.    The Spring Reading Thing goes from March 20 to June 20.  I am already participating in the TBR Challenge, so my list for this challenge will include those books, too.

Generally, I am planning that each book will take me about 2 weeks (although it has proved to be much shorter in the past), so for this challenge, I am aiming for 2 books per month.  One is from my TBR list and one is a new book.
Here is my list:

1.  Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet

2.  Mothering Your Nursing Toddler by Norma Jean Bumgarner

3.  Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

4.  Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

5.  How Weaning Happens by Diane Bengson

6.  How to Talk so Kids Will Listen By Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

This is probably pretty optimistic for me, but I’ll take any excuse to read more!

This is a monthly carnival from the wonderful people at 5MinutesForBooks.
You can participate pretty much however you want as long as your post is somewhat related to books. You can post a picture of your list of books to be read. You can review a book you read last month. You can make a list of books you hope to read this month. You can list the books you hope that Santa will leave under your tree or in your stocking. It’s really up to you! It’s definitely one of my favorite posts of the month. I enjoy going through the other posts and reading what others are recommending and reading. Generally, I try to visit every website listed. I don’t always leave a comment, but I think I usually get through all of the people who leave their information in the Mr. Linky in the first 3–4 days after the carnival is posted.

So, on to my reading list. Since Jaosn and I are not getting each other Christmas presents, I don’t have a large list of books I’m hoping to unwrap in the next several days. I have a few though that I have been working on for a while and would like to finish. I also have a couple I’ve been meaning to start for a while.

To finish:

Eat. Pray. Love by Elizabeth Gilbert– I find this book interesting, although I almost exclusively disagree with everything she says in her Pray section. I started it quite a while ago, and it’s been my slow and steady book for those times when I have a short amount of time to read. Her chapters are short and easily manageable.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan– It seems a little ridiculous that we need to defend food. Pollan traces the history of the nutritionism movement and the desire of people to know exactly what they should or should not eat to a point where it’s broken down into nutrients. Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

To read this month:

Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin

Something Blue by Emily Griffin

and hopefully any of the four BookMooch books I’ve got coming in the next couple weeks!

This is part of the reason that I was so disappointed when I spent an evening reading a book from our local library the other day. It had the promise to be SO good! When I read the back, I was hooked. I brought it home, and I wanted to devour it. I knew that I would finish it all in one evening. Unfortunately, after about the first three or 4 chapters, I started skimming. Then, I started really skimming. By the end, I was primarily reading only the first and last page of each chapter with a glance to the other pages. Then, I read the ending, and I thought “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!??! That’s how it ended??? Ugh.”

Now, for those of you who are wondering what the name and/or who the author of
this book is, I’m not going to say. What? Yes, I know. The thing is that books are so individual. A person’s tastes are so different. I don’t want to say that a book is terrible and have people not read it because I didn’t like it. I am perfectly willing to give recommendations of books I enjoyed and considered to be good, but I don’t think it’s fair for me to label a book as “bad” for someone else. I love books and writing and reading too much to do that for anyone.

These are the rules
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next two to five sentences.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intellectual one. Pick the Closest.
6. Tag five people to do the same

The closest book I have to me is called Artemis Speaks: V.B.A.C. Stories & Natural Childbirth Information written and compiled by Nan Koehler. I have no idea what I’m going to get on page 56.

“Most obstetricians use technology defensively in VBAC labors, in spite of the fact that there is no more justification for routine intervention than in any other labor. If a horizontal scar separates, it does not cause massive hemmorage, so there is no need for prophylactic IV. The uterus usually continues to contract normally, and an electronic fetal monitor will not pick up a scar separation.“
There you have it. I did want to break rule #5 by the way, but I didn’t do it.

I’m supposed to pick 5 people to do this meme, but instead I’m going to say if you do it, leave a comment and I’ll come read your meme.

5 Minutes For Books

It’s time for my favorite carnival! It’s the 5 Minutes for Books monthly “What’s on Your Nightstand?” carnival. Yay!

This is so hard for me. I have so many books I want to read. I have told my husband several times recently that there are just too many books and too little time. Last month, I spent most of my reading time reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. It was okay. Yes, that was a lot of time to allocate to something that is just okay. Generally, I’m not the type of person who sticks with something and follows it through if I start to lose interest, so I decided that I was going to read all 4 books no matter what. Also, I was curious. I liked some of the characters, and I liked the first book quite a bit, so I wanted to see how she wrapped it up. It seemed to me like there was a LOT of room for another book in the series and that it wasn’t really wrapped up. I know the movie just came out, but I don’t go to movies so I most likely won’t be seeing it for quite some time if at all.

This month, I’m back to my pile of books from BookMooch and PaperbackSwap. I’m also thinking a lot about homeschool, parenting, and breastfeeding toddlers, so maybe I’ll read some of those types of books, too.

Do you have any homeschooling, parenting or breastfeeding books you’d recommend?

]]> http://www.beautifulletdown.net/whats-on-your-nightstand-3/feed/ 4 http://www.beautifulletdown.net/and-david-was-dancing-before-the-lord-with-all-his-might/ http://www.beautifulletdown.net/and-david-was-dancing-before-the-lord-with-all-his-might/#comments Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:13:24 +0000 Casey http://www.beautifulletdown.net/?p=336 This is a quote from the book of 2 Samuel in the old testament of the bible. Through October and November, I was attending a bible study at my church studying the life of David. One of the day’s homework was about this verse. “and David was dancing before the Lord with all his might.” At first, I read over it and blew past it. Then, when I went back, I thought about how it must feel to be doing something with all his might. Then, I thought about how he was praising the Lord with all his might. To me, that sounds like a very beautiful picture. Although, I’m sure to some of those around him, it probably looked more strange than anything else.

One of the questions in the study was “When was the last time you saw someone doing something with all their might?” or something similar. I thought about it for a while, and I really didn’t have many examples. The one thing that came to mind was thinking about how athletes celebrate after winning a championship game. Seeing them jumping and screaming and crying and just laying on the ground in awe is what came to my mind. Then, I wondered when was the last time I did something with all my might. I apologize in advance to anyone who thinks this is more than they want to know. The last time, I did something with all my might (here’s your last chance to stop reading) was childbirth and pushing. Most of you other moms who have been through labor know what I’m talking about, right? That was great, because it was for my kids. Of course, I would do all that I could for them.

So, again, I was thinking, thinking… This month, I committed to NaBloPoMo. I missed two days, but I have definitely blogged on days when I would rather have skipped. I mentioned at the end of last year that Jason’s sister is doing a photography project that involves taking a picture every day for a year. She’s sharing them online at her Flickr account. It’s called Project 365. It got me wishing that I had some sort of neat project that I could commit to like that. I’m actually still wishing that, and since it’s coming to the end of the year (can you believe it?!?!?), I’ve started thinking about it again. Unfortunately, last year, I didn’t do much about these thoughts. I’m hoping and praying that this year, I will make a commitment to something. I’d like to do something meaningful and challenging. For a year? Maybe not. I’m not committed to a year, but I would like to do something that stretches and challenges me. Maybe, I can do something with all my might.

What

Last month, I set forth a nearly impossible reading goal for myself. Instead of reading all the books faithfully on my list, I got side tracked. I read the first two books in the Twilight series, Twilight and New Moon. I will be completely honest this month and I’ll admit that right now the other two books are the priority on my reading list. I’m waiting for Eclipse to be returned to the library and then I’ll read Breaking Dawn right after that. Right now, I’m reading Eat. Love. Pray. and I have to admit, I’m not loving it. I’m definitely looking for a diversion. So, if anyone knows who has that copy of Eclipse that is 2 weeks overdue, tell them to take it back! Normal reading plans of way too many books in way too few days will be resumed next month.

The book I read is Finding Stephanie by Susan May Warren. Here is the original review. I’m not much of a book reviewer. I can’t always tell you exactly what I liked or didn’t like about a book, but I usually can tell how much I liked it by how late I stayed up in order to read it! This book must have been pretty good, because I stayed up later than my husband! That has probably only happened 3–4 times in the last 6 years.

Finding Stephanie is the 3rd book in the Nobel Legacy series. The first two books are about her somewhat-prodigal brothers and how they find their way back to the family ranch which she has been running. The third book is about Stephanie. I had hoped it would get into more of how she felt about being “the good child” who waited on her own dreams and sacrificed in order to maintain the family’s ranch. It did talk about that a little, but I felt that discussion was pretty superficial. I didn’t really feel like I knew how hard it had been for her. In this book, Stephanie becomes neighbors with a movie star who purchases a nearby ranch. He seems to have some interest in her based on her lack of interest in his stardom. This is one of the two main story lines. The other storyline is about a boy and his two younger sisters who are on the move. They are without parents, and it appears they are in danger of being split up in the social service/foster care/adoption system.

To me, this book was good. I enjoyed it. It has some good, sweet romance and a little suspense. It definitely held my interest, and if you’re looking for a good, quick read, I would recommend this one. If you’re looking for something deeper or that has more character development, or if you’re looking for a book where you really miss the characters after you finish reading, I’d say skip this one for now and save it for a day at the beach!

To be honest, this is one stage that I didn’t ever anticipate.  I thought about what would happen when they were both nursing and how to handle that.  I thought about what I would do when A became mobile and wanted to take K’s toys.  I thought about what I would do when we were at the mall and one child went left and the other went right.  I just didn’t think about having them both be in the tantrum stage at the same time.  Whoops.  I wish I would have thought more about this stage so I could have had some ideas on how to proceed when it arrived.  Instead, I’ve had to take each day as it comes and learn from the one before.

Right now, K’s tantrums or meltdowns tend to happen when he is hungry or tired.  Generally, when he starts to yell or cry, my first thought is when did he last sleep (and how was the sleep quality) and when did he last eat.  If either of those is contributing to the issue, I try to remember that.  Of course, it doesn’t excuse a tantrum, but it does put the cause into perspective.  He’s pretty serious about being mad, but I have to admit that I have a pretty hard time keeping a straight face when he starts to jump up and down and wave his arms at me in an attempt to show me just how angry he is.   Unfortunately, if Jason and I don’t catch the tantrum early or if we don’t react in a constructive manner, it can go on for a while.  That is definitely the drawback of an older child’s tantrums.

A on the other hand tends to explode into meltdown mode as soon as he worries something might not go his way.  In fact, today, he and K were playing in our play kitchen area.  A thought that K was taking a toy from him when actually I put it on the floor instead of letting it fall.  A turned toward K and had his mouth WIDE open in anticipation of a good, hard bite.  When he saw his toy on the floor, he just sat down and started playing with it.  Luckily, the tantrum was avoided.  Unfortunately, he is currently in a phase when he hates, hates, HATES having his diaper changed.  Sometimes, all I have to do is move toward the diapers and he starts getting mad at me.  He is easily distracted though, so once the diaper change is over, he’s happy again.  Yay!

Right now, I don’t think that I have a “good” or 100% effective way of responding to either one of them.  I’m not sure if I ever will.  I do think that parenting isn’t always about finding the most effective or efficient way of dealing with a situation.  I think it’s more important to respond in a way that is respectful of the child and myself.  I haven’t read the entire book, but I’ve seen Harvey Karp on a few tv shows.  His book, The Happiest Toddler on the Block has some good tips.  Also, Elizabeth Pantley has a book called The No Cry Discipline Solution.  I haven’t read the entire thing, but the one part of it that suck out to me was that a child will not learn from what you are saying once he/she is crying.  I think part of parenting is seeking out solutions and then using what works.  For us, we haven’t found a foolproof method, but that won’t keep me from continuing to look!