Too Cute for My Suit

The kiddoes in their swimsuits: Daniel especially gets a lot of smiles as he bounces down the beach with his inflatable inserts in his speedos, front and back. He looks like he's going two directions at once. Sophie is just proud to have words on her bottom - who wouldn't be?

Aaah! As soon as I sat down to write this blog, it started pouring, and I had to dash outside to rescue our clothes (the darks, if you want to know) from the clothesline. One of the hazards of living 5 minutes from the rain forest.

This weekend, Ryan finally got tired of me complaining about the unwashed socks smell of our couches and spent the afternoon steam-cleaning them. Too bad that Daniel fell asleep on one this afternoon without emptying his bladder first.

Our schedule is getting steadily fuller. Daniel now has swimming lessons on Tuesdays and Fridays down at the Makiki pool. I'm glad we have these photos immortalizing his "floaty" swim suit, because soon he won't need it anymore. Plus, someday they'll make really good blackmail.

Sophie started praise ballet class today, along with a few of her friends from church. I'm not entirely sure what "praise ballet" means; I think it's classic ballet forms choreographed to worship music. She came home and showed me a tondu. Ryan tried to tell her it was a fondue, but after six years, she's wise to him.

Tonight we had our first official community group / Bible study. We had 16 adults, 7 kids, one act of violence (Daniel pushed Liam, 14 months, because he wasn't Sean), one injury (Sage, age 7, fell off the bed onto a board game and gouged her knee on one of the pieces), 3 kinds of dessert, and 72 slices of Costco pizza. Oh, and we studied Acts 19, as a set-up for the book of Ephesians.

Just for fun, and because I'm an unrepentant English major (and a hopeless nerd), I'm throwing in some book recommendations -- all children's or YA, all things I've been reading this week -- for anyone who's interested. Seriously, stop reading here if you're not, because I ramble on for a bit:

Momo, by Michael Ende (author of The Never Ending Story). Wanna read a banned book? Spanish editions are freely available in the U.S., but it is not published here in English, and its British publisher is forbidden to ship it here. (I got it from an online used book seller after my prof assigned it for class; he's ordering copies from a dealer in England who doesn't mind smuggling them out) It's a very gentle fantasy about a girl who saves her town from the Time Stealers. Completely G-rated. I can't imagine why it's not allowed in the country - except that it offers a devastating critique of a media-driven and consumerist culture. Also stars Cassiopeia, my favorite precognitive turtle in all of literature.

Earthshake: Poems from the Ground Up, by Lisa Westberg Peters, pictures by Cathie Felstead. Fun poems about geology. Sample line, from "Instructions for the Earth's Dishwasher" : "Remember / if anything breaks, / it's your fault." Sophie might be a tad young to understand all the puns, but she'll get the gist (jest) of them.

A Wreath for Emmett Till, by Marilyn Nelson, illustrated by Philippe Lardy. A Printz Honor Book for Young Adults. A heroic sonnet cycle -- fifteen interlinked sonnets, with the last poem made up of lines from the previous fourteen -- about the 1955 lynching of teenager Emmett Till and the acquittal of his murderers. Beautiful and horrific and intricately crafted, and with notes from the poet and the illustrator explaining the literary and visual allusions.

Lately, I LOVE The Magic Treehouse books. Sophie is reading them non-stop and I got hooked, too. A little Arthurian legend, a little time travel, two siblings that actually like each other (a rarity in my house), and a lot of history, art and literature. And Morgan Le Fey as Camelot's librarian. It doesn't get any cooler than that.

(Unless, of course, it's a bonus Daniel picture . . . )