So this is a pretty big news day--the ALSC awards were announced this morning! And it looks like readers across the country were right--When You Reach Me was indeed the Newbery winner! Now I really do have to read it--despite my best intentions, it just didn't get done this weekend. I was also excited to see that Flash Burnout got the Morris award--that I did finish, and I thought it was great. It's always interesting to see authors who are probably my age giving props to all the music of our youth. Jerry Pinkney's The Lion and the Mouse was certainly spectacular as well (Caldecott winner) so in my opinion justice has been done. I do need to get my hands on Going Bovine (Printz winner) now as well--it was on my list all summer and then all of a sudden it wasn't. Ah well, now it's back. I need to watch Libba Bray in a cow costume on youtube to remind me. I started reading How do you Spell G-E-E-K? on Saturday, but it's short, and then I play catch up. I spent this last year in a post-partum fog, at least for the first 6 months. Well, the whole thing, really. And, as a result, I haven't read a fraction of what I should have. But, new year, fresh start, right?

As I said, this was indeed a big news day. For about a month now we have suspected that my daughter has celiac disease, and today we got confirmation that she does indeed. On the one hand, I'm kind of relieved, because once it became apparent that she had something, better celiac disease than any of the other possible diagnoses. And once it's under control she'll feel better, she'll grow, her quality of life will definitely improve. The down side is, this makes her susceptible to all sorts of other way worse diseases if she can't control it (I'm thinking rebellious teenage years here, wanting to drink beer because everyone else is and who brings wine to a keg party??), and it's hard to explain to a child who turned 5 two weeks ago that she can't have any of the foods she likes. She's smart, but she's stubborn--we have a long road ahead of us here.

I am going to have to make a conscious effort here, to go against my own personal inclinations and be positive for her. In that vein, we were totally gluten-free today. It wasn't the most exciting day, menu-wise, but we did it. So tomorrow we'll do it again. And if anyone has any gluten-free recipes for a picky child addicted to ravioli that aren't prohibitively expensive, then shoot them my way!

Liz 2.0?

So this is embarrassing--it has been almost exactly a year since my last post, and before that it was a pretty long time too. There has been a lot going on in my life in the last couple of years, and I was leaning toward throwing in the towel, blogwise, but some events over the past few weeks have got me reconsidering. I'm still a librarian, that much hasn't changed, and I'm still a mom, but rather than have me consistently complaining about how my commute is terrible (it is) and my house is a mess (it really is) and how my husband and I are so tired most days that we barely have the energy to talk about anything except the logistics of how to get through the next day (we are), I want to try to give myself a little focus. So I'm proposing a fresh start and maybe an expanded focus--I still want to talk about books and maybe stuff going on in libraryland, but I think my life is just going to have to seep in here too. Plus, I spent a lot of money on my English degree; I should be writing something other than grocery lists and the minutes from the last staff meeting! Although I give fair warning--grocery lists may indeed play a huge role here in the not too distant future... I also would like to try to give myself a minimum goal of one post a month, maybe a maximum of one a week--I'll start small and see how I go. Call it a new year's resolution!
So here's what I'm reading: Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan (teen), The Help by Kathryn Stockett (my token grown-up book), When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (hopefully will finish before Monday's award announcements), and finally, Walter Wick's A Drop of Water is currently in heavy rotation at bedtime. Also various books/pamphlets/websites about gluten-free diets, as my daughter was just diagnosed with celiac disease this week, and will likely be a couple of weeks before we get an appointment with a dietician (hence the grocery list talk). I'd love to hear what anyone else is reading, I'm always looking for something good!

And now, a little venting

I've decided to blog today, because no one I know really wants to listen to me complain. I officially returned to work from maternity leave right after the new year, on a Saturday no less, and the fates seem to be conspiring to make me wish I was still at home. Or at least that I had a live-in nanny.
Going to work Saturday was a breeze, as my husband was home and I didn't need to get anyone out of the house but myself. Monday was a bit more of a challenge, as I had to drop the two kids at two different places before getting myself to the train station by 7:30 am. But I did it, both Monday and Tuesday, without too much trauma. Wednesday we had a mini ice storm, not too bad really, but enough so the town delayed school. Until they changed their minds and straight-out canceled school, which I didn't know because once I saw there was a delay I just focused on getting out at the new time and figuring out a different train to take, etc. Plus the temperature seemed to be getting warmer so imagine my surprise when, after dropping the baby off at his babysitter I arrive at the preschool to see that the place is dark and empty. The school is in the town Y, which was open and the staff was kind of snooty, like why didn't I keep tracking the school closings after I already saw there was a delay? Why would I?? Grr.
So. Back home to regroup, call my son's babysitter to see if she'll take my daughter (she will), change my daughter out of her bathing suit because she was supposed to have swimming at school today, and then back out for now the 8th time into the rain to drop off at the babysitter's house. Of course, now it's after 9 am and the trains are running far less frequently, so I bite the bullet and drive, which ironically is the only part of this day that was a pleasant surprise. Ordinarily I wouldn't be so annoyed at getting part of the morning off, but I just spent the last three months using up ALL of my sick time and vacation time, so time off means I don't get paid. Anyway, once I finally get to work the day is pretty much fine, good even, and when I get back on the road at almost 4:45 there's not even any traffic. But things soon take a turn when I call my husband to tell him I'm on the road and he tells me that my daughter has PINKEYE and that the baby probably does too. Stop at the pharmacy, pick up my daughter's medicine that the pediatrician called in, go home, take a look at the baby's eyes and decide that he needs to go in and see the doc--they won't just call in a prescription for him. And, they're both considered contagious until they've been on the medicine for 24 hours, so now my husband and I argue over who has to stay home until my mom can make it in the morning (she meanwhile, had to cancel a dr. appointment of her own just to do us this favor). And don't forget about the laundry--all the sheets and towels for everyone need to be switched out. By this time I'm twitching, imagining my eyes feel sticky, extra teary, you name it; I am not normally a germ-phobe but I really do not want pinkeye and feel like my house should have a giant "quarantined" sign on it. As a children's librarian I thought I had been exposed to practically everything, and that my kids were reaping the benefits by building up their own immunities, but I was clearly wrong about that.
I actually feel better now that I've gotten this all off my chest--here's hoping that this is the worst 2009 can throw at us!

The year that was

Well, despite my best intentions I have not been the best blogger this year--I did all right the first half of the year but then things sort of spiraled out of control...but here we are at the end of the year and I feel sort of compelled to make some kind of year end statement or reflection.

I wish I had something profound to say, but my whole year is pretty well defined by the last three months since my son was born. I am heading back to work right after the new year, on the 3rd. My daughter started preschool, which only underscores the fact that she is definitely not a baby anymore, plus she turns 4 on Monday. Just three days ago, the baby rolled over for the first time, and yesterday he had his first cereal, so he's getting big too. I'm still exhausted, and I have no idea how I'm going to get myself and the two kids out of the house my 7 am everyday, but at least once I go back to work I'll have something else to worry about than the last time somebody ate or pooped or took a nap.

On that note, crying child #1 has arisen from his nap. Happy new year!

Slacker mom

Okay, I am totally embarrassed by the fact that my last blog post was in JULY...I have clearly fallen by the wayside in the whole book-a-month thing. That is not to say I haven't been reading--I have, and have been updating my librarything accounts and my iRead or ibook or whatever they're calling it now on facebook--but I haven't been reading on task, and I definitely haven't been blogging about the books. In my own defense I have been kind of otherwise engaged: I had a baby five weeks ago, and worked full-time up until the day before I gave birth (3 weeks early), and my husband was away in Alaska for almost 3 weeks during my 7th/8th months leaving me alone with my 3 1/2 year old while everyone I worked with went on vacation during the final throes of summer reading. Still, a deal's a deal and I clearly haven't been holding up my end of the bargain reading challenge-wise, so I need to somehow make myself feel better by confessing here, whether anyone actually reads this or not.

At this point I am so sleep deprived it's a wonder I read anything except bedtime stories to my daughter, but I am trying to get through a few things. I managed to get a copy of David Sedaris' newest book and am snickering my way through that ten pages at at time, or until I fall asleep. Before that I read Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father (which I started out of a sense of duty, but then got hooked), American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld (I love, love, love her!), Chelsea Handler's Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (again with the snickering, or in some cases, weeping with laughter), and now I am in the middle of listening to the final book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn.

Now, because I haven't finished this yet, I should probably not even say anything, but I had mixed feelings about this book because I didn't exactly love the previous books in the series. Bella as a character annoyed the daylights out of me, with all the swooning over Edward's marble arms, stony chest, blah blah vomit. She was such a totally dependent character, and her obsession with Edward seemed like the worst kind of teenage mooning about. Plus, I am firmly on the side of team Jacob, because Edward always seemed a little too goody two-shoes for my taste. Then, because I didn't read the book in the first week it came out I found out some key plot points--like Bella and Edward do get married, and she gets pregnant, and Jacob imprints on the daughter while she's still a fetus--so I debated whether I really needed to read the fool thing at all. But, I am reluctant to admit, so far this book is appealing to me more than the first three. I think it's better written than the previous books, and Bella isn't such a whiner in this one, at least not after she becomes a vampire. But I think my hang-up was that I didn't want her to become a vampire, but now that she has I realize it's more interesting this way--and Edward isn't such a Puritan with her anymore, which was also getting pretty tiresome. So, making a long story short, I'm enjoying it much more than I thought I would. Of course, because I am listening to it, I can only get through it so fast so it's a little slow going--I find myself looking for excuses to go on long car trips and I haven't had too many occasions to go anywhere while home on maternity leave. But I'll confess to being probably a bad mother--I do listen with my 3 year old in the car--the language is pretty clean, the sex is alluded to but never described, and she doesn't know what a vampire is yet, anyway. Plus, it puts her to sleep sometimes, which is a bonus.

In search of the first fortune cookie

Let me just start by saying that it's a good thing this month's theme was broad, because otherwise I don't think I'd have been able to do it this month. Now if the theme had been, oh, let's say, summer reading club preparation, I could have written a book about that, but as it was the theme of knowledge was about as lucky as I was going to get. The only book I read this month that fits this theme was Jennifer 8. Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. And as it turns out, it's pretty appropriate. Inspired by an unexpectedly high number of Powerball winners who all won on the same day with the same numbers pulled from fortune cookies, Lee sets out to find out the origin of the desserts, which are suspiciously un-Chinese in character. Her research takes her all over the country and eventually all over the world, to see how "Chinese food" differs regionally in the U.S., from country to country, and often barely resembles actual Chinese cuisine at all. Lee also touches on the issues that have surrounded Chinese immigration to the U.S. and the important role Chinese restaurants have played in the lives and livelihood of Chinese immigrants. She does finally get to the bottom of the fortune cookie conundrum, and along the way offers some possibilities for the world's "best" (admittedly a biased label) Chinese restaurant.
I'm not going to pretend for a minute that this is the most academic book I've ever read, but considering the month that just ended, I'm just lucky I was able to fit it in at all. And I have had a terrible craving for General Tso's chicken ever since I finished reading it!

Didn't we almost have it all?

Ugh, motherhood. I had to think long and hard about this one. I have a mother, I am a mother, and I am currently exactly halfway through a pregnancy, so I am about up to my eyeteeth in motherhood these days. I'm not really the Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul type, so I chose something a little less feel-good: How She Really Does It: Secrets of Successful Stay-at-Work Moms by Wendy Sachs. I actually bought this book for myself about two years ago, when I had been back at work a little less than a year after my daughter was born and was feeling totally overwhelmed and overtired. And then I never read it. Basically, like pretty much every mother, I am busy with too much other stuff to read, both for work and for pleasure, and I didn't want to waste my precious free time on this, which felt a little like taking my medicine. Fast forward two years, and suddenly this seemed like the perfect title for the challenge.
Sachs is a freelance TV producer and mother of two, and wrote this book because she felt pressure to stay at home with her kids and pressure to work for financial reasons and for her own self-esteem. And in talking to other moms she knew, she found that she wasn't alone in her conflicting feelings. This led Sachs to expand her research and she interviews all sorts of working mothers, mostly professionals, including television journalists, celebrities, lawyers, bankers, politicians and entrepreneurs, and gets their take on how they manage to balance a full-time job and being a full-time mother.
What's both discouraging and heartening is that pretty much everyone, no matter what they do, is burning the candle at both ends. The hours are terrible, when you're at work you wish you were with your kids, and when you're home with your family you feel guilty because you know there are things you should be doing at work. The good news is everyone, rich or not-so-rich, is in pretty much the same boat. The bad news is, there are no secrets to successfully negotiating this, except toughing it out and sacrificing. Some women "opt out" of the workplace for their kids and end up totally derailing their careers, to the detriment of their finances and their sense of self. Indeed, she cites motherhood as one of the greatest indicators of a woman's future financial ruin, mostly because of divorce but also because a woman's potential for future earnings is pretty poor if she has a 10 year hole in her resume.
It's hard for me to review this impartially, mostly because I am full up with hormones and this book strikes a little close to home. One mother in the book calls her situation a house of cards, where one weak card being pulled out can cause the whole thing to fall apart, and I must admit that's exactly how I feel pretty much all the time. The book isn't so much about self-help, but more about encouraging women who feel like they're at the end of their ropes that they're not crazy (or wrong, or bad mothers) for wanting careers despite being mothers. At the end of the day, what works for one person won't necessarily work for someone else, but these women show that there are lots of ways to cope.