Carrie, you'll like this! (Subheading: Why I Love To Read)

One of the reasons that I got practically nothing done on Tuesday was because I was desperate to finish the latest Marian Keyes.  I have got to post this excerpt.  (Geeeeze I don't know why..... although I suspect that many of us regardless of how many children we have might (just MIGHT) be able to relate).

"Jill was obsessed with hotels.  Her favorite fantasy was that her Southfork house had fallen into a hole, it was the builder's fault so there was insurance money, and while it was being straightened up she had to live in a hotel.  She adored hotels.  You could make shit of the place, absolute shit-abandon towels on the floor, get make-up on the sheets, spill ketchup on the carpet, even break wine glasses-and it was all someone else's problem.  (Sometimes, on bad days, the fantasy included the subplot that her four children, her husband and her mother were trapped in the up-ended house.  She entertained no ill will toward them, she simply didn't want them in the hotel with her, so they were alive and well, playing lots of Monopoly and subsisting on canned foods.)

The Family That Reads Together (is mostly doing it under duress)

As an experiment, we are reading My Friend Flicka as a family.  YES, that includes Gene.  I'm reading it aloud, a chapter or two a night, no ipods allowed, no texting.  Gene has not balked too much.  It's a great story (Gus's favorite).  I would like to find something that would appeal more to Gene but Gus has wanted me to reread Flicka for six months now. 

We have a great library here.  It's one of Bay's favorite places to go (mainly because there is a great little wooden kitchen which she pops into and brings me tea), but she also likes it because the boys (the little bastards) showed her the movie section.  We had a long talk in the car about the whole "point" of the library.... the REASON for the library... but the damage was done.  Our rule is that after she plays in the house, we find books and only then can she pick out ONE movie. 

Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes

Gus loves fairy tales.  I have always found them (especially any of the brothers Grimm) to be so gruesome that I never read them to the kids, or I read watered down versions where Grandma doesn't actually get eaten by the wolf, but Gus and Bay seem to like the original versions.  Gus' current favorite is Jack and the Beanstalk... when we got to the whole "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood etc etc " I was sure I was going to far, but neither of them seemed all that impressed by the graphic words!  Anyway, now I'm on a quest to read them more of them and I feel pretty bad that I've neglected this whole genre.

Bay has discovered nursery songs...  Currently we are singing "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly"...  I've always found the lyrics to be quite disgusting, but there again, Bay wants me to sing it over and over and over.  Must expand repertoire.