Mommathon

Okay, I have one more class left until I am finished with the degree I have been working on, but I MUST have this degree. Around 1999, I started looking for a children’s lit degree. There was one that was available somewhere in the east or south and it was only during the summer and you had to live there during the summer. Sean was not real hip on the idea of his new wife being gone for the entire summer for two or three summers in a row. I looked into a librarian degree…I figured that would be close but it’s not. You have to take all kinds of classes to be a librarian that were not relevant to what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a school librarian, but there are many different types of librarians (like a law librarian, for example) so you have to take classes so that you can be any type of librarian when you graduate. I guess that is how I got into the reading specialist program. It had to do with reading and kids, but it still wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. This program, is, however. I am going to call them on Monday and see how it works and if I could do it from home or with a minimal amount of driving. I looked on their website and it isn’t part of their distance learning program (not a good sign). Maybe I could even use some of the classes I took for the first master’s degree and apply them to this one. That would be nice. (Oh, by the way, I haven’t talked to Sean about this yet. So, honey, if you are reading this and we haven’t talked about it yet, we have something to talk about.)

I read this book in three days! It was SO good. The laundry was neglected and the house was not cleaned, but I got the book read. It was one of those books that you can not put down because you have to know what it going to happen. The main character kills her mother (I didn’t give anything away, it is the first sentence of the book). The story goes back and forth from the past (giving the reader background and the motive for the murder) to the present. This is the part that makes you keep reading. Is she going to get caught is she not? Will they arrest someone else? It is definitely not a happy book (obviously, she kills her mom…there are clearly some issues) but it is a good one.

Also, I have read two of this authors other books. She is such a good writer, but she always writes about some fairly serious topics. I would highly recommend The Lovely Bones and Lucky, also.

The boys had a real babysitter last night. We have always had the grandparents watch the kids, but we decided the kids were old enough and we felt comfortable leaving them with a teenager. I must also say that said teenager is also a relative and the daughter of Colm’s godfather. She did a great job and the boys had a great time. We will definitely have her back again. The only downside is that we have to pay this babysitter. Grandparents are willing to do it for free…teenagers are not.

New season started tonight. This is just about the only show I make time to watch besides the 10 o’clock news, so I am glad it is back.

Another book that took me forever to read…This book was recommended to me by a friend. It is a collection of autobiographical short stories where the writers relate some aspect to their life to one of Judy Blume’s many novels, including: Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, Superfuge, Deenie, Forever...etc. I have another book on hold from the library. It is about Sassy magazine. If you never read this magazine as a high school/college student you missed out. If was Seventeen magazine only a zillion times better. So good, in fact, that my mom wouldn’t let me read it. I think there might have been a lot of moms like mine because the zine didn’t last more than maybe six or seven years…but it was a good run.

Sean’s parents gave us a very nice (and big) bottle of beer about two years ago. They got it while traveling somewhere and Sean and I decided we would save it for something special. So, we have sold our house, settled into this one and everyone is finally healthy again. (Knock on wood.) So we decided to break it open tonight. We shouldn’t have waited. This beer has been sitting around for so long, we had put so much pressure on this beer to be really good, that we were a bit disappointed. It was okay, but it was REALLY bubbly and was a bit like beer mixed with a wine cooler…not necessarily a good combo.

Liam has discovered Pokemon. Need I say more? I just hope and pray that this is not his next phase. I can handle Star Wars. I even made it through his long and drawn out (and rather intense) love of Thomas and Friends, but I don’t know if I can handle Pokemon. Really. He got two Pokemon books at the book fair this week and the whole Pokemon thing just seems mind numbing. Ugh.

We have birthdays aplenty around here this weekend. It is Shannon’s birthday (Sean’s sister), Sean’s birthday, Sean’s grandma’s birthday and Liam has a friend’s birthday party to go to, also. On top of all of that, my sister-in-law (also on Sean’s side of the family) had her baby shower today. The shower was great and a lot of people were able to make it. We had a yummy lunch and Holley got a lot of essentials for little Finnegan.

Liam asked us today if he could have a personal watercraft when he gets a little bit older.

Where did this come from? He was reading his Spanish/English dictionary in the car and I guess that was one of the words. I think our response was to say sure. There is no point in having the conversation at this point. We’ll just say yes and hope he forgets, which he won’t, but , again, there is no point in arguing about it right now either.

Another interesting thing he asked me recently while I was driving and he was reading in the back was if he could do marital arts. My first reaction was to see what in the world he was reading and to try and figure out what marital arts were. It turned out he wanted to do tae kwon do…martial arts….much better.

Liam’s Class Pic

Dividing up the loot