A Couple of Gourds

So I've been noticing a proliferation of "baby at the pumpkin patch" pictures on my friends' myspaces, facebooks, and blogs. Never one to miss out on a trend (that's actually the opposite of true), we jumped on that orange bandwagon. Just a few problems: 1) Costa Mesa is strangely devoid of fall gardens; I mean, at a beach where it's been a million degrees since May, who would have thought? The nearest true patch is in Irvine; by the time we drove there he would undoubtedly be asleep, or almost so. 2) Ben is three months old and, while he is pretty advanced in terms of sitting abilities, he's still pretty tipsy. And a baby laying next to a pumpkin is just not as cute as a baby sitting with one. 3) We've been ridiculously busy. So....we did the next best thing. We borrowed a neighbor's pumpkin, put it and Ben together on a blanket in the library, and took some pictures. The result? Unmitigated cuteness. Behold our progeny.

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Tummy Time with Ben

So Ben usually hates tummy time. As soon as I put him down he cries. But lately he's been more amenable to it. Today he was trying to roll over and suck his thumb at the same time. I thought it was pretty funny, so I grabbed the camera. But I got a whole other show entirely. So here's our gassy little guy.

Book Update

So teacher week at Barnes and Noble has come and gone. This year I had plenty of birthday gift cards to spend and go hog wild with my 25% off. You know how sometimes when it's time to make dinner and nothing sounds good? You're kind of hungry and you know you should eat. There are even plenty of delicious options in your pantry and fridge, but nothing appeals to you? Well, that was my experience. I even have an Amazon wish list and a little notebook where I write down book titles that I come across and want to read, just for times like these. Nothing. I went to B&N three times last week, and all I ended up getting was Ghandi's autobiography. To be fair, I own thousands of books. I have three Ikea Flarkes (like Billy only cheaper and less sturdy) in my room filled with fiction (alphabetized by author and title...no judging). I have hundreds of Jesus books, plays, poetry, Shakespeare's entire oevre (four times over, no less), a dozen literature anthologies, an entire big Billy full of young adult lit, philosophy...you name it, I have it. So maybe I've finally reached a point where I have every book I would want to read. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just in this weird funk where I'm not my usual literary devotee. As I've mentioned before, lately whenever I go to my personal library (and make no mistake--it is as complete as an actual library), nothing sounds good. I've got a half dozen half-read books lying around. Right now I'm even invoking all of the perserverence I can muster to finish a book I hate, just because I really feel like I need to commit.

Where's nerdy Shannon? I miss her. :(

3 Months

Happy Three Months, B!

Twain vs. Kidd

I'm a reader. I have been for as long as I can remember. I'm also a book snob. My favorite book in the eighth grade was The Count of Monte Cristo. I started reading Les Miserables my freshman year of high school. I devoured Dickens, Dumas, Austen, Hemmingway, Shakespeare and Faulkner like they were oxygen. My Christmas lists were comprised of books and miscellaneous random items like tennis skirts (I don't know). I used to play school. Nerd.

And then there was Ben.

I have a half a dozen half-finished books littering my nightstand. Adam Bede and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court stare me down every time I approach my bed. But I just can't do it. I want to--I do. When I go to the bookstore I drool over the classics display and fantasize about myself curled up on the couch with Gogol and Rushdie, savoring every delectable morsel. And then I try it. I grab that damn Yankee, crack open the deliciously yellowed pages (I'm a used book junkie), and dive in with alacrity. Two paragraphs in, I'm cranky because I don't feel like thinking that hard and I'm falling asleep. Then I toss the book on the nightstand, turn off the light, and bury my face in the pillow, exhausted and guilty, like I'm somehow forsaking my English degrees and disappointing Dr. Walter-Carney, the Rhodes scholar I studied under that helped me get into Columbia.

It's just that I'm tired. I teach middle school English and History all day and come home to a sweet and wonderfully needy three month old. All I want to do after my little peanut goes to bed is curl up in front of the TV and slip into a deep coma, passively ingesting mindless and addicting crap. McDreamy and Michael Scott do not ask me to think. Dostoyevsky does.

But I must read. I spend my days singing the praises of reading to a couple hundred apathetic twelve year olds. If I don't read I'm a hypocrite to them and a disappointment to myself. So I pick the next best thing to The Fountainhead: The Mermaid Chair.

If you know me, you know I'm all judgy about contemporary fiction. Most of it is meaningless crap written by what sounds like fifth graders. The stories are pedestrian and the writing is horrifyingly juvenile. Either the vocabulary and prose are simple (but not the good kind like Hemmingway) or the authors sit there with a thesaurus and try to pack as many lofty, superfluous phrases as they can to make the book longer and "deeper". Yet here I am, in an attempt to avoid George Elliot and Mark Twain, reading what has to be the dumbest book I've ever read (save the Left Behind series).

So here I am, begging you. Please. Give me some titles. Save me from this book. I need something that isn't going to make my brain explode, either from profound depth or sheer stupidity. I need a new A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This week is the teacher discount week at Barnes and Noble, and I've got birthday gift cards to spend. Help!

Fight or Flight

What do you do when someone questions a pretty big part of your self? What do you do when someone asks you to think about whether or not you're sure you picked the right career?

Instinct #1: Flight. I sound the retreat and put on my sweats, curl up in bed, refuse to speak to anyone out of fear, embarrassment, and heartbreak. I question who I think I am, and I cry and cry, believing that the person I have spent a lifetime becoming isn't good enough.

Instinct #2: Fight. The defenses go up. It's unfair for her to say that. The anger wells up. I'm good at my job, and no one has any right to insinuate that I'm not.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Happy birthday to me.