Summer Reading

Found this awesome print on Etsy here.

I couldn't let the summer end without posting pictures of where my girl Lucy spent most of hers....in a book. I love that she loves to read and she reads all.the.time.  She fell in love with the Harry Potter books this summer and read the whole series, twice.  I hope she always loves to read.  

It's so hard to say goodbye to summer and hours of doing whatever we want and reading whatever we want and all the sunshine and waaaaaa.  Here are a few of the other summer adventures/memories we had this year, here's our summer 2015 montage/mash up/highlight reel: 

(Click here to watch the video.)

Real books, Real Connection & What I Know For Sure

My kids love a little screen time, okay a lot of screen time.  If I let them, they would make all their time, screen time.  I don't let them of course.  Too much time with video games and "high pads" (what Wade calls the beloved iPad which seems appropriate because it's a little like crack) and TV make my kids grumpy zombies.   So I try to limit it and discourage it, and it's hard.

Everything on their screens is so immediate and right now and flashy and distracting and addicting.  It's frustrating as a parent and as someone who loves my iPhone and television and my "high pad."  But I also love real books and story time and connecting and think that there is so much value in those things. So, Tim and make it a priority to read to the kids a lot.  

Tim recently started reading a series he loved when he was growing up, The Great Brain, to the kids and they are loving it.  They gladly give up their screen time to listen to him read to them.  Real books, story time and connection--it's so good.

Last week, Tim ordered the next Great Brain book in the series.  The kids checked the mail everyday after school to see if the book had come yet.  It was all so old-fashioned, like it was 1986 or something. 

When it finally did arrive, they were so excited.  About a book.

They couldn't wait for bedtime, they wanted Tim to start reading right after dinner.  So, he did.

Every night before bed, the kids hurry to get their PJ's on and brush their teeth so they can hear another chapter.

Wade is a little too little to be interested in chapter books, so he looks at other real books during storytime.  

Screens are good, but real books, storytime and connection are where it's at, I know that for sure this week and always.

Here's what else I know for sure this week:

• My kids are animals.  Yeah, yeah, I just wrote how sweet they can be.  And they can be.  But they can also be animals.  I found pictures that JT took while the other boys were wrestling and they are crazy. I mean crazy.  The roughest, meanest one? Wade.  

Yeah, look at Wade taking down the pre-teen with some crazy ultimate fighting leg lock move. Crazy.

• I'm getting in a fitness groove, finally.  It feels ahhhhmazing to get back at it.  Working out is my anti-depressant, I need it and I can't believe I sort of forgot that over the past six months.

• I am sad about Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's "uncoupling."  I mean come on, I hate when people break up.  BUT I also like to find the funny in every situation, here's a funny made-up interview between Gwyn and Terry Gross from the New Yorker that makes me laugh.  

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/terry-gross-interviews-gwyneth-paltrow-about-uncoupling.html

• I love having a big family and I got to talk about it over on WhatToExpect.com this week.  It was fun to see my gaggle of kids on the home page of their site.  Check it out in case you missed it.  

• The Good Wife wins the best show on TV right now.  I have been upset all week about a major character being killed in last Sunday's episode.  Yeah, I know it's TV, but it was a MAJOR character (and I possibly have an unhealthy attachment to fictional characters).  How will I move on?  The trailer for this Sunday's episode looks so good.  It will either help me heal or put me over the edge.  

What do you know for sure (this week)?  C'mon, we're friends, share what you know. 

Leave a comment here or on my Facebook page or on Twitter.

I love getting to know everyone through pictures.  Please come play with me on Instagram @jumpingwithmyfingerscrossed.

Book People

We are book people.  The words, the stories, getting lost in other worlds, discovering new ones...we are so book people.  

I love reading aloud to the kids.  

The kids love reading to each other.

They also love reading on their own.  

We are book people.

This photo is not staged.  Peyton was so into his book on the Fourth of July, he couldn't be bothered by all the firework business the others were plotting.

My Lucy is possibly the most book-ish of all of us.  Her picture should be next to the definition of "voracious reader."  Anywhere and everywhere Lucy has a book, always.  

Sometimes book people seem isolated and unsocial, but not Lucy.  She can jump from book world to real world with great ease.  In fact reading makes her come alive and engage more, after just one more page of course.

She doesn't just read, she takes notes and studies the books she loves.  I find notebooks full of details about her favorite characters.    From vampires to Ramona Quimby to Harry Potter to biographies of Helen Keller, Lucy loves them all.  

When I got a chance to review and write about Travels with Gannon and Wyatt, I went straight for Lucy, voracious reader extraordinaire.  At first I got an eyeroll which is what I always get when I suggest something.  I said we are book people, not super sweet people.  Lucy loves books, but she is a normal tween that is skeptical of any ideas I have.

But it was a book, so she read and read and read. And she loved. 

One part of this book that is so great is that it has a notes or journal section in the back of the book.  Perfect for my little note taker/researcher.

Travels with Gannon and Wyatt is a middle-grade adventure series written by Patti Wheeler and Keith Hemstreet.  They are based on the real-life travels of twin brothers.  The books are full of adventure and action. Click here for more information (http://clvr.li/GNrZxQ). They take the reader along on a journey to Botswana,the Rainforest and Egypt.

"It's really exciting," reported Lucy while reading the first book.  "They get in some really dangerous situations.  Like where they get surrounded by Rhinos in Africa."

Basically, the books had her at "adventure."

Lucy finished this book and quickly moved onto the next one in the series.

The Travels with Gannon and Wyatt series include:
Botswana (released May 2013)
Great Bear Rainforest (released October 2013)
Egypt (to be released January 2014)

The books are about twin brothers who travel to all corners of the globe in the tradition of the historic journals kept by explorers such as Lewis and Clark.

It gets the Lucy seal of approval.  And now you and your family can go on the adventure as well.  Just leave a comment and you could win all three books, just in time for the holidays.

Are you book people?  What kinds of books do your kids get lost in?  Or leave a comment telling us what your favorite book was growing up?

A winner will be chosen randomly next Tuesday, November 26.

And head on over to the Travels With Gannon and Wyatt Facebook page for the chance to win a Kindle Fire.  They are giving away three in the month of November.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Books=Happiness

This print is from The Little Illustrator on Etsy. Check her out, she has amazingly cute stuff.

Ahhh, books. I love books.  I love words and stories.  There are so many books I want to read.  But I hardly read anymore.  Before I became a mother, I heard the stories of moms who stopped reading books.  And of course, since I was full of empathy and compassion, I rolled my eyes and thought that would never be me.  But dude, it's me.  I generally fall asleep two pages into a book.

I still love books.  I have shelves lined with books I've read or want to read.  I have boxes of books that I haven't even unpacked yet from our move last year.  My nightstand is stacked with books that I plan on reading. Even my iPad bookshelf is loaded with downloads of books waiting to be finished (hello BossyPants).

Yeah, there's a Shrek glass and a pacifier on my nightstand too.  And yeah, my son is almost 4 and too old for a "paci" but please don't judge. (Not to mention I'm way too old for a Shrek glass.)

There are also a couple books I've read on my nightstand or that I've started and haven't finished yet.  And when I say I don't read books anymore, I just mean not as many as I want.  I read a few a year (that sounds so horribly embarrassing, ugh, you can judge that, go ahead).    Rockabye by Rebecca Woolfe is one book I recently finished.  She is a blogger and totally cool chick.  Her blog is GirlsGoneChild.net.  The book is about adjusting to motherhood after the birth of her first baby.  Since it was a million years ago (really only 11, but today it feels like a lot longer, Spring Break is making me older and more exhausted by the minute), I thought maybe I couldn't relate.  But, I did.  

I finished the book on the plane to Dallas last week.  As I prepped myself for my weekend away from my family and told myself to let go of the guilt and enjoy myself and embrace the power of pursuing my own dreams, I read this:

Preach.  This is exactly what I needed to read before my big blogging conference weekend away.

I love books. I love words and stories.  So what, if I only read a few books a year.  I know I'll read more when I'm less exhausted and the kids are a little older and there are magically more hours in a day.  Until then, I will be inspired, entertained and enlightened by the books I do read.

And then there's the whole joy of reading books to my kids and sharing the love and happiness.  I often worry about baby Wade (I know he's almost 4 and he's not a baby, even though he still has a paci at night and climbs in bed with me, but he's my baby) and the fact that as the youngest of four kids, he hasn't been read to as much as the others.  But I shouldn't worry.  He loves books too.  His current favorite is AbiYoYo.  He literally jumps up and down with joy when we get the book out to read.  

We just started reading Where The Red Fern Grows as a family last night.  I remember loving that book when Ms. Hunter, my fifth grade teacher, read it to our class.  Ms. Hunter was a very cool teacher and very progressive.  She was the first divorced teacher I ever had and the first woman/teacher/person I ever met that used Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs.  Radical stuff for 1984.  So, not sure if it was because I liked Ms. Hunter or the book itself, but two chapters in and the whole family is hooked.  So far so good--we're all hooked.  I love books.  And words and stories.

What are you reading right now?  What's on your nightstand?  Is there a book I should put in my top four must-reads this year? Are you reading any good books to your kids? 

Twain is Timeless

Thank god my kids love books and reading.

I remember the way my dad's voice sounded.  I can hear it in my memory, like a long-forgotten sweet lullaby.  Soothing. Calm. Smart. Safe.  That was my dad as he read book after book to my sister, brother and me when we were kids.


The entire Little House on the Prairie series. Oh how we loved those books.  My sister and I would recreate the scenes my father read to us.  Of course, being the older, wiser, calmer one, my sister would get to be Mary Ingalls.  And of course, being the irrational, emotional, impulsive one, I would be Laura Ingalls.  We totally fit the parts.


My father read so many books to us.  Sometimes I would hang on every word, so deep into the story I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. Begging for "just one more chapter, pleeeeaaassee!"  Other times, I played with my toys while he read.  Sorry to say, but I wasn't a fan of The Hobbit series.  (Never was and still am not.)  


He read Watership Down to us (when I was 6 years old), The Call of the Wild, The Chronicles of Narnia and more.


Those nights were the launching pad for my imagination.  Those nights were also the foundation for some of my sweetest childhood memories.  


There's something special about reading aloud to your kids.  Experiencing and rediscovering the joy of a story together. Now I have the great privilege of experiencing that joy with my own children.  And believe me I feel honored. 

I just got done reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to my oldest two children, Peyton (age 10) and Lucy (age 8).


It was an edited "child-appropriate version" that someone had given Peyton as a gift.  We laughed at some of the crazy things that went on in Huck's life.  We were appalled together about slavery and the treatment of Jim.  We had silly discussions one minute and extremely moving, deep discussions the next.  


My children amazed me with their empathy and compassion.  I feel as if I know their hearts better after sharing this experience with them.  


"Can you read the Harry Potter series to us?," Peyton asked after I was done.  He has read all the books, but said he "wants to hear it all together."  


"Are you kidding me?," I asked excitedly.  "Of course I will, I can't wait."

What are you reading to your kids?

This is a good site/resource to help get some ideas for books for your kids to read on their own and for everyone to read together-ReadKiddoRead.com

And just for fun, the oh so quotable Mark Twain:


"Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied."
Mark Twain just summed up Facebook. 


"Always do right. That will gratify some of the people, and astonish the rest."


"The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet."

I mean come on, this is so true today.  Twain is timeless.

A Change of Scenery

For the past few days we've been taking it easy, well at least for our family.  Laying low, chilling out, trying to not break JT's arm even more while we wait for the cast.  But the thing is, we aren't really a low-laying, chill out kind of family.  So, yesterday we headed out into the stifling heat wave and walked to the library.

We have a great library.  A beautiful library.  It was actually one of the reasons I moved here, that and my future husband lived here.  


My kids (and me) not only needed a change of scenery, they needed a little space from each other.

I love that they were so excited to pick out their books and had trouble narrowing it to a five book limit.  I love that the older kids read a couple of their books before we left and had to go back to pick out new ones to bring home.  

What I find confusing is why the little ones became fascinated with toys that we have at home?  They had a little trouble sharing the train table with other kids. 

"Um, guys, let that kid play, we  can go play with our train table at home," I told them.  They looked at me like I was nuts.  Mmm-kay.

But, whatever.  They were happy, mostly, and no one broke anything.  It was a good day.

Speaking of scenery changes, here's blog update...I just added a page on this here blog called "Blogging/Vlogging Here Too."  It has some links to other sites and channels where I've been featured or done some work.  It also includes this key phrase:

"If you are interested in having me write a review, a guest post or produce a video for you, please contact me at youngbloodsix@yahoo.com."

Know anyone that might need my writing/video production services?  Please feel free to pass along my information.

Here's just a fun little video from up and coming group Karmin.  Sure it's a year old, but it's fun.  I think I love them and what they call "swag pop."  Enjoy.

Good Night Moon Doesn't Suck

po·et·ry [poh-i-tree]
noun
1.  the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.




When my first born son, Peyton, was a baby, we read to him a lot.  My husband and I both would sit in the room with him before bed and take turns reading to him.  No wonder he just might be our smartest kid.  


We started with board books and moved on to full-size children's picture books.  We did silly voices and made funny faces while we read.  Dr. Seuss never disappointed, they were so FUN to read.

I never understood why everyone was so in love with the book Goodnight Moon.  It was BORING.  I tried to read it in a Scottish accent to shake it up.  Didn't work.  I tried a saucy Spanish accent.  Didn't work.  I tried rapping it.  Yup, not proud, but I was desperate to make it better.  Didn't work either.


But now, 10 years later, guess what...I can't wait to sit down at the end of the night and read the oh-so-boring Good Night Moon to my 2-year-old baby of the family.  


You see, life gets louder, more cluttered and down right crazier as kids get older.  There are gadgets and toys that have sirens and laser-like sounds.  The books have buttons that make sounds.  The alphabet sings from a magnet on the fridge.  Elmo is giggling or singing the Chicken Dance song.  Buzz lightyear is trying to get to "infinity and beyond."  


As the older ones get a little older, they just get louder themselves....demanding to be heard. "MoooooM, did you hear me?! He took my stuff and I want it back now!" or "MoooooooM! she hit me!"   


Or they tune you, and anyone else they don't want to listen to, out by turning up the Wii game, putting on headphones with their ipod shuffle (much to the chagrin of my older children we still have not purchased either of them an ipod touch) or yes, slamming the door, loudly.


Just like those sweet little Dr. Seuss books I read to Peyton all those years ago, my house and my life are full of too much "noise, noise, noise." It's like god damn Whoville without the happy Christmas vibe.


That doesn't even begin to touch on all the distractions as they get older with homework, activities, sports, friend fun and friend drama.  And all the computer/phone/social media issues that I am terrified of dealing with (not quite there yet, because we also refuse to get any of our kids cell phones, but you better believe some of their friends in 4th and 2nd grade have them already).


On an old episode of Thirtysomething, Nancy says "Good Night Moon, it's poetry really."  Elliot wasn't listening to her but I was.  You see Nancy was no Hope on that show, but she really knew a thing or two about children's literature.  If you aren't a Thirtysomething lover (first of all what's wrong with you?), just trust me, Nancy knows.




She was right.  The book is slow, simple, sweet and quiet.   It is a bit of a meditation.  Look around your room and be aware.  Say good night to everything in your room little one and appreciate all of it.  Remember it.  Feel safe.  Feel loved.  And give that love back.


With all the noise and clutter of our lives with kids, Good Night Moon reminds me to slow down, pay attention.  Look around my house and appreciate all of it.  Remember it.  Feel loved.  And give that love back.


It is also a reminder that the older kids need to unplug, focus and quiet their minds too.  And there are some really cool moments, poetic moments with the big kids too--it's not all slamming doors and yelling out demands.  


Now they can read a book on their own and tell you what they think.  And there's the whole awesomeness of going on trips and museums and rediscovering the world with and through them.  Without worrying about whether they will jump into the dinosaur exhibit or throw their spit-covered pacifier at the famous painting.


Over the holiday break, my dad and I took the kids to the history museum. 

Only five thousand other families had the same brilliant idea.  It was crowded and loud and distracting. But there were still poetic and memorable moments, and we paid attention.


Like when they couldn't stop giggling at the bare bottoms on the statues.  But they were also so interested in other things and asked questions.  And we took the time to answer most of them.

Lucy was mesmerized by the gems on display.  Part of the gem exhibit was Madeline Albright's pin collection.  

A particular pin caught Lucy's eyes (I swear I didn't force this that's what makes it a bit magical), it was the "Glass Ceiling Pin" alongside a picture of Albright with Hillary Clinton.  Lucy, in her sweetest Linus-like voice, read the description about Albright being the first woman Secretary of State and shattering the glass ceiling.  "What' a glass ceiling?" she asked.  


I started to explain.  Another older woman also started to explain the history. An older man added, "Isn't it great when they can read!"


It was poetry.  I looked around that room full of strangers, two that were talking to my 7-year-old daughter about history and the world, and appreciated everything in it.  I remembered it.  Felt love and wanted to give it back.


Living with intention and poetry.  Slowing down.  Taking stock.  
I bow down to you Margaret Wise Brown.  Well done.  And thank you.