A book to touch your soul

Eleanor's Story: An American Girl in Hitler's Germany

I stumbled upon this book while in the library looking for books on Eleanor Roosevelt. Literally just saw it on the shelf and picked it up because of the name "Eleanor" in the title. That's when the full title grabbed me and I had to check it out and read it.

I literally just put down this book after completing it cover to cover. Its one of those books you cannot put down, its so very well written...but not only that...its the kind of book that makes you feel like you've changed because of having read it.

Everyone knows about The Diary of Anne Frank. Everyone knows about the horrors the Jews suffered at Hitler's hands. Never in my life had I ever considered the horrors the German civilians also suffered because of this war and Hitler specifically.

This story is told from the eyes of a little girl who was born in America to German immigrants. When she was just 9yrs old, just prior to WWII, her family moved back to Germany. Apparently (I had never known this before) Hitler had helped to rebuild Germany's economy after WWI and was enticing German immigrants to come back to the now booming economy with job offers. Eleanor's father received one of these offers and chose to move his American family back to Germany. Little did they know what was to come. 

Prior to leaving the US, Eleanor overheard a conversation between her parents and some friends about Hitler's actions in Europe and the possibility of him taking over Poland. Eleanor's father's opinion was that he would be "crazy" to do that, and he would never do that! Sadly, once on board the ship on its way to Germany, that's exactly what happened. The ship's captain announced "Germany has declared war on Poland" to the stunned passengers. The next day he announced "France and England have declared war on Germany." And the family was stuck on its way to Germany.

It was absolutely unbelievable to me from that point on all the events that take place and all the family (and the entire German civilian population!) has to endure. They tried to immediately turn around and go back to America but they only had Deutschmarks and now no one anywhere would convert them to anything that would allow them to purchase passage back home. They were stuck and it was only going to get much much worse from then on. Especially since the family will settle in Berlin, where the father had been offered a job and where daily bombing will eventually take place for years on end.

The happy ending for this story, and the only real joy out of this horrific story is that the entire family...the parents, the 2 children born in America and the 2 little ones born after they arrived in Germany, do make it out of Germany alive in the end. But after years of chaos and hardships beyond belief and horrors that I cannot even comprehend. And these are people that didn't ever set foot in a concentration camp nor even were aware of what was going on in these camps until after the war!

You seriously need to read this book if you have any interest in history. I am going to purchase a copy and put it on my homeschool book shelves next to a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank, and have my kids read it when they are ready to read about this horrific war. Its particularly of interest to me as I am half German-American. My mother's parents were both full-blooded German-American, and my mom's first language was German. She is 2nd or 3rd generation, I believe (I'm not sure if it was my great or my great great grandparents that were immigrants from Germany. Will have to check on that.)

I cannot even explain to you how well this book is written, and all that you will learn and feel from reading it. It is NOT little kid friendly, I'll warn you of that. I will be waiting til my children are older to expose them to the sorts of things she talks about witnessing and experiencing in this book. But as an adult, I would highly recommend all adults with any interest in history and specifically in WWII read this book. I got my copy from the Fresno Public Library, so if you're local to me...my copy will be back at the library this week sometime. :)

time to drag out my playful parenting book

tyren is seriously exhausting us. just in the past couple weeks he has been throwing the most hideous tantrums and fighting us on everything, and i mean EVERYTHING.

good god its exhausting.

i'm crossing my fingers its just a phase that he's going through and we'll make it through this eventually. i certainly hope its not a long phase. every day we tend to have the same fights over the same things, and the only thing that really seems to work with him is playful parenting.

example: tooth brushing, which had for awhile been going pretty good. never a breeze, its always been a struggle, but he was doing much better now that we force the issue every single night. well lately its been a huge fight again. we've even had to hold him down again a couple times and its just pure hell. it makes me dread bedtime. especially since he will NOT have daddy. it HAS to be me. good heavens, child, you spend every minute of every day with me...aren't you tired of me yet? apparently not.

anyway, tonight i just didn't want to go there with the fight, so i tried some silliness. it worked. usually does. i just don't always feel silly. but i've been trying to be more silly with both of my children. really it helps tremendously, i'm amazed.

i've even had an "ah HA" moment with maeven's spelling lessons...she's not particularly enjoying the lessons. its not even really all that hard nor tedious. all i do is read 20-25 words each day, give her a sentence for each word, and she writes the words on her paper. then she shows to me and if she spelled it wrong, i write it correctly on our little dry erase board, and she corrects her work. we do this as we go, with each word. its a really great program called sequential spelling. the words build on each other as well, so today she had in, inn, inning, beginning...etc. i love the concept. its just brilliant.

anyway i decided to spice things up a bit today and instead of doing the usual boring sentences, i'm trying to do the silliest i can think of. going to make it a point to do this every time, as i can. she was giggling like crazy and writing the words down without any grumpies. love it.

anyway, there's definitely a lot to be said about playful parenting. time to drag out that book again. i found it again in the shed last week, so i'm going to go drag it out this weekend and start reading it again. its an awesome book.

Violence is not child's play

have i ever posted about the lion and lamb project?

i can't remember.

from their website: "The mission of The Lion & Lamb Project is to stop the marketing of violence to children. We do this by helping parents, industry and government officials recognize that violence is not child’s play –and by galvanizing concerned adults to take action."

i got involved with the project when daphne white, the founder of the organization, did a chat with me on mommy chats. this was when i was doing mothering magazine sponsored chats. this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, so i really was happy to learn about daphne and her organization.

during the chat, or after, i can't remember...i learned that daphne was shutting down the organization (the fight was getting too hard, and she wanted to move on with her life) and that the website would disappear as well. that site is a wealth of wonderful information. i couldn't let it disappear. so i offered to keep it up for her. and i still am. i did some original tweaking to fix some of the gobbly gook code, and fixed a mess of broken links. but i haven't really done anything since. i would like to actually go back to it when i find time and clean it up some more. i'm sure there are more broken links now.

anyway, i was just thinking about this recently...since my son is at a very impressionable age. i have always been very adamantly against violent play for children. violent games, violent toys, violent shows, etc. i've kept it out of my children's lives as much as i possibly can. i seem to be in the minority.

i feel like a minority among minorities. i'm already a "freak" in that i am pro-natural birth and homebirth, and exclusive breastfeeding and extended breastfeeding, and cloth diapering, and being a family bedder, and anti-cry-it-out for my babies, and VERY anti-circumcision, and anti-spanking, and i believe in delaying academics and homeschooling and unschooling, and no soda for my children, and i'm sure there's more that i'm leaving out...

and trust me when i tell you i take NONE of those issues lightly. they've all come from a LOT of reading and learning and research and asking questions and spending time talking to so many people and on and on and on...and coming to my own conclusions on things.

add to that list my anti-violent play stance.

i already had this belief before i became a mom. i was raised by a preacher and his wife (my dad and mom) that were anti-violent play and didn't even allow us to pretend to shoot with our fingers, much less have toy guns or weapons of any kind. (i distinctly remember for my brother's 6th birthday, i think, that he got a cannon game that my mom made a big point of returning to the store.) so i was raised this way.

but as an adult, studying child development at CSU Sacramento (later getting my bachelor's in Child Development), i learned even more that sold me on the belief that "violence is NOT child's play." at least it shouldn't be. this was a big part of my college education. and its why you won't find any quality preschools that will allow war toys in their programs.

so finding daphne and her organization was a godsend.

on that site is a wealth of research and proof of all the things that i had been taught as a child as well as taught as an educator. violence does not belong in childhood, even pretend violence.

i firmly believe this.

but, i am a minority on this. even among my vegetarian and peace-loving anti-tv hippie-esque friends (i'm not sure what hippie really means anymore, since its meaning has greatly evolved in the 2000s, i think, but some would think that the circles i hang with are hippies. i don't necessarily agree...some yes, but not all of them.) sure, some of them are similar minded, but i am finding even among all these alternative lifestyles that i'm in the minority. so many people i hang with are fine with their children playing war or having toy weapons or watching violent shows or playing violent games, etc.

i am not trying to say that i would want to change them...because i wouldn't want anyone trying to change MY ideas on things, so i certainly am not on any mission to change anyone else's! they are all very intelligent and loving parents, so i don't doubt that this is something that they just don't have a problem with, just like i don't have a problem with some of the stuff i let MY kids do that they wouldn't dream of letting their own kids do. we all have our things we feel strongly about.

i just find it interesting, that's all.

i read a book awhile back that really cemented these beliefs in me:

i own a copy of this book and intend to read it again soon...tyren is going into this age where i fear he might get drawn into this type of play. i've seen hints of it already.

i don't worry about maeven. its really true that girls are drawn to different things than boys and she's just never had any desire to pursue violent play. plus she's older and past that impressionable age where she's wanting to mimic everyone around her. tyren is smack in the middle of that stage. i am very concerned about what and who i expose him to.

he's turning 4 in about a month. this is where i've seen violent play explode in the little boys i used to teach preschool to. so far its not happened with him and i hope i can handle anything that comes my way in a way that i can feel good about.

i'm trying not to go completely overboard and ban things. but i don't want it in our lives. i don't want him playing violent computer games (daddy plays his at night after the kids are in bed, deliberately to not expose them. and the kids know that daddy's games are not for children. i treat it the same as alcohol and coffee and soda. not for my children. when they grow up, they can choose for themselves. for now its our choice for them.) i don't want him having any violent toys, i don't want him being around children who obsess with violent play.

he is my little mimic. he picks up everything around him. so i try to surround him with what i WANT to influence him. so the children we hang with are children who don't go around pretending to kill each other all the time. its worked well so far. the only violent play i've seen with our weekly play dates are occasional sword play, which seems to mostly be very rare. and i just distract him when it happens. so far its worked.

if it comes up, i try to distract him casually...but if its something that it would be a big deal for me to get him away from, i try to stay back and look for an opportunity to distract him away from whatever it is (a tv show, a game, a toy, violent play, whatever)...so i don't flat out ban it for him because i think that would just make it more appealing to him. i figure if he gets a little exposure here and there it won't be the end of the world because he's not going to have that in his home life, which is the major part of his life, so hopefully that will be enough to keep it from becoming an obsession. and i do see children who literally obsess on this sort of play. this is why i avoid these children.

yes, i'm picky. but i'm ok with that. i know that what i feel is right for me and my kids. my husband understands and agrees with me. he doesn't want them exposed to this stuff any more than i do. probably he doesn't feel as strongly as me, since he did have plenty of violent play as a child and turned out to be quite a kind and caring husband and father. so obviously just because a child engages in this sort of play they don't ALWAYS turn out to be gang bangers and thugs.

but that doesn't mean i'm ever going to be ok with letting my child play that way. just because its not a given doesn't mean its ok. just because some smokers don't develop lung cancer doesn't mean its healthy to smoke. just because some alcoholics don't pickle their liver doesn't mean its healthy to drink excessively. you get the point.

its not ok with me and it probably never will be ok with me to have children that play violent games and play with violent toys or watch violent shows. sure there will probably be a time later in childhood where i'll be more ok with things because they will be mature enough to handle more. but that doesn't mean i'll ever be really comfortable with it. heck, i don't like that my husband enjoys hacking up monsters either! i'm not ok that my brother is drawn to really dark and twisted books and movies. it is really sick and bizarre to me and i don't get it. probably never will.

i am working hard at just keeping this out of my children's lives as much as i possibly can, but not to the point where i feel i'm going really overboard. i know it doesn't feel right to make a big deal in front of my children's friends...so i just play each situation as it comes and try to calmly deal with it when it arises. during the toddler and preschool years, i found it fairly easy to take my kids into another room to play when family members would put on games or shows that i felt were inappropriate for my children to watch (no small feat, but doable)...and i continue to do this as i feel is needed, and adam does as well. thankfully he agrees with me on this and so he notices inappropriate things as much as i do.

and now that maeven is older and just the personality she is, she knows when things are inappropriate and covers her eyes or walks away. she isn't drawn to it anymore than i am. and i suspect she feels about it the way i do, sometimes physically ill by what some people find entertaining. she's so much like me in so many ways. she also works at helping to shield her little brother from things. sometimes i have to tell her to relax a little because she goes overboard sometimes...but i really appreciate that she's on my side with this. she knows when to take her brother to play elsewhere because someone is doing or putting on something inappropriate.

it does get harder and harder as tyren gets older though. because before he was pretty oblivious. now he's getting more aware of things. hopefully he'll be like my brother, and not really care that much about what mommy and daddy are distracting him from. tim never seemed to care much about the banned war play. neither did i. some kids, i know, would make it a continual battle. hopefully it won't come to this. if it does, i may have to compromise my principles a bit to avoid the battles...but i won't compromise them completely. if tyr turns out to be a child that its a huge battle to keep him away from these sorts of things (and i am of the mindset that some is taught, but some IS innate. i'm not totally hard core.) i will have to figure out some ways to make it ok with both of us. not sure what that will look like, but i'm open to it if it comes to that.

i just hope it doesn't come to that. i can't see me ever fully relaxing about violent play. like i doubt i'll EVER be ok with him having a toy gun. squirt guns, sure, we already have those because they are fun and none of the ones we have even resemble a real gun, if my son even knows what one is. and when we play we don't pretend to shoot each other, we squirt with water. and we call them water squirters, which they are. i'm ok with that. and there might be more things i'll be ok with...but i don't ever see myself ok with him having ninja turtles or g.i. joe or power rangers. probably won't ever be ok with that.

but i've learned a lot of things from being a parent...and one of the biggest is never say never. so i try to keep a somewhat open mind...and keep steering my children in the direction i want to see them go.

i just hope i can handle it as well as my parents did and have it be a non-issue like it was in my childhood. times are really different now, so we'll see.

wonderful quote

this is from this book:

(Claudia): But Mrs. Frankweiler, you should want to learn one new thing every day. We did, even at the museum.

(Mrs. Frankweiler): No, I answered, I don't agree with that. I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can FEEL it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then, you just accumulate facts. And they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really FEEL anything with them. It's hollow.

wow, kinda makes ya think about what is happening every day all over the world...with all the cramming of info into little heads.

Proof of a peaceful morning!

It's true! And I have proof!
This morning the kids were busy...Tyren playing Zoo Tycoon on the computer, Maeven reading a book...and I finished the dishes! It's crazy, I know! I wouldn't have believed it either, if I hadn't seen it with my own 2 eyes! Here's the proof:


Notice Ottmar Liebert in the background (not sure if you can hear it that well, but its Spanish guitar music...and the sound of the washing machine going when I go into the kitchen. I really have become a domestic queen this week!

And that's not all! I've been doing pureeing of veggies to put into recipes that I've put on my new menu this week. I know! It's crazy! ME, the domestic flop! Not only did I make a plan, buy the ingredients, but I actually have been putting them all together!

The past 2 days I've spent much time learning how to steam veggies and puree them to hide in meals for our family! I'm using these cookbooks:

Did breakfast ice cream yesterday morning for breakfast...complete with hidden avocado (can't taste it!) and made mac-n-cheese with hidden cauliflower for lunch (YUM!)

Got these veggies cooked and pureed and bagged and frozen:

• cauliflower
• carrot
• yellow squash
• butternut squash
• sweet potato
• avocado

And more to come! I actually had a lot of fun doing this! I feel so domestic! :)

Yesterday when I was working on the avocado, Maeven decided she loves avocado and ate a whole one! They were very ripe so it just slid right out of the skin, it was wonderful! I have very little experience with veggies...especially the ones that I'm working with now...so this is all very new to me!

I told Maeve about guacamole and she decided she wanted to make some. So I showed her the recipe and she made some and it was YUMMERS! Just avocado, lime juice and salt...eaten heartily with crackers by all of us. Still have some in the fridge. The rest of the avocados went into breakfast ice cream, and one left, pureed and frozen, for the next batch.

It's just been a very productive few days! My brother came over yesterday because I asked him to help entertain the kiddos while I mowed the lawn. Adam is out of town for the weekend (actually should be home in the next hour or so) for a shoot...so I got the front lawn all mowed, looks very nice! Next I need to work on the backyard, but I wanted to continue work in the kitchen first.

As the video attests to, I got all the dishes washed or loaded in the dishwasher (will run and put away later)...and the counter is clear of piles of dishes for the first time in idontknowHOWlong! Really, I'm horrible about dishes.

And the laundry is mostly done as well. I just don't know what's gotten into me! LOL!

Friday we had Brooke over here and when her mom came to pick her up, she saw the tray of nutritious snacks I put out for the kiddos:

and saw that I was working on pureeing veggies and said "What's gotten into you?" LOL! Really, its shocking! I just hope I can keep it up.

Actually, I've decided that it is time that I stopped proclaiming loudly to anyone that will hear that I "HATE HATE HATE everything about cooking...I hate planning meals, shopping for food, and preparing the food." And hence, eating out so much and having very little variety in the food that we typically eat at home. I'm just tired of it all. So I've decided to take the approach I think I read by Flylady awhile ago..."Act as if..." (I think it was from her, not sure)...act the way you want to be/feel/do/etc...and eventually if you pretend long enough you might actually enjoy it!

So I'm going to pretend that I don't abhor everything about cooking. And I'm going to get my butt in gear and really do well by my family for the first time ever.

Well so far its going quite well. I do realize that I might peter out...there's always that possibility...but I'm hoping I'm able to get enough practice in this to actually find out that I do indeed enjoy all this and might be able to maintain. All I can do is try. We'll see how it goes.

I'm tired of getting all fired up about a new routine or idea I have to improve our home life and then petering out after just a short time. So I'm going to try not to go TOO crazy here, and keep it all doable. So far so good. I actually have enjoyed learning about these "new" veggies.

As a rule, I don't like veggies...so this is as much for me as for the kids. *I* need the veggies too! I found it absolutely fascinating yesterday when I noticed the smell of my roasted sweet potatoes smelled very much like regular potatoes...just with a hint of sweetness (DUH, hence the name, LOL!) I guess I never had them before. I think I was thinking of yams...since I was thinking orange. I've never cared for yams. But sweet potatoes seem doable to me. I tasted it and it wasn't bad! Hm, learn something new every day! I think our family will be exploring veggies more these days! Beyond pureeing them and sneaking them into things...I may just be steaming some here and there for us as well.

Another funny thing...I have this pasta pot with a steamer in it and I never knew what it was for! I thought it was a collander for the pasta! LOL! How dumb am I??? I have used it the past few days and have been just OVERJOYED at how stinkin easy it is to steam veggies! This is all NEW to me! Can you believe it??? LOL! I'm laughing at my own inexperience here...and really enjoying what I'm learning!

I got a food processor for my birthday last year (November)...and only every used it to slice carrots...and only once or twice. Now I am getting a lot of experience with it and loving every minute of it! I even shredded a whole ton of cheddar cheese for us! Bought a huge block of it at Smart and Final and shredded half of it. What a cool thing! I'm just turning into a domestic goddess! LOL! I'm very proud of myself, can you tell? :)

i want my "big room" back!!!

most of the time i try not to think about how long its been since i had a separate room for art projects and play and homeschooling.

but its really hard when i think about all the stuff i'm NOT doing with my kids simply because of not having the space for it. i know, i know, i really should just make do with the space i have. but i don't.

we used to have art projects going on in the big room all the time. well, maeven did. we haven't had use of the room since tyren was barely walking. yes, its been that long. going on 2yrs this summer, as i recall! unbelievable. i doubt tyren even remembers anything about that room other than chaos and mess.

i HATE HATE HATE using the kitchen table for projects. our table seriously sucks. its all wood, and not the kind that cleans up easily. and it has leaves that go down, so stuff gets stuck in the cracks all the time. it seriously sucks for daily eating with kids, forget about it being anywhere close to good for projects. i know, i can just put a plastic table cloth over it, but i rarely do. my kitchen is ALWAYS a wreck, so doing a project at the kitchen table requires cleaning it up first. something i am obviously bad at in the first place or the kitchen wouldn't always be a wreck! and then there's the hassle of cleaning it up after we've done a project so that we can eat at it again. too much work, really!

anyway, i KNOW that i should just grin and bear it and use it anyway. but i don't. rarely, at least. there are still times when i do. just not very often.

and i read all these absolutely wonderful blogs about how rich other homeschooler's lives are with projects and exploration and hands-on activities and i think..."oh if only i had our big room!!" i know i need to make it work in another part of the house. but i just can't seem to get myself to do it often enough. it just adds to my work! ugh ugh ugh. and then i feel guilty all the time for what i'm NOT doing, and then i get moving and do stuff and it doesn't last.

that's not to say that we never do ANYTHING, because maeven's room can attest to all the projects she's done in there. until it gets totally trashed and then her projects slow down considerably because she hates going in there. (gee, i wonder why? don't talk to her about it, though, because its a losing battle.)

and i do set up stuff in other areas of the house sometimes...i just hate to do it.

so i have it in my head that homeschooling is seriously suffering because of not having that room. and that makes me very very bitter. because its taking so damned long to do anything in that room! its still as torn apart and as far from complete as ever it was!! going on two years!!!

and now we have run completely out of money. not only that but we can barely pay for the day to day things, so the room is, out of vital necessity, on hold. indefinitely probably. because we have no more help for it and we have no more money.

and right now we are fighting to just feed our family. money is so tight that i felt guilty buying 2 small books (just $10 each) at the book store today (they were AWESOME books!! i couldn't resist! i can see us using them a lot!!)

and

probably shouldn't have, but its been awhile since i bought any books for homeschooling, and i had taken maeven to the store to get some books with her allowance and i just couldn't resist when i saw these. i'm really excited to use them! :)

anyway...i just HATE the situation we're in without that big room. i get really overwhelmed by it every once in awhile (like right now) and have to vent about it. because we were FINALLY on a roll! things were happening! and then they just came to a halt again! UGH UGH UGH. it really upsets me when i think about it too much so i guess i should just not think about it anymore.

i need to figure out how to make do with what i've got. i did start to get things out of the shed and brought out the bookshelves that used to be in the big room and started de-molding (have to use a special mold killer to clean everything all over) the books that i wanted for those bookshelves. there's still a TON of stuff in the shed and in bags around the house though. *sigh* and i cannot access so much that would really be cool to use.

at this rate its beginning to feel like its never going to get done. because right now we are just fighting to survive in this economy. the $2000 that we borrowed from adam's mom to help with the big room is now gone...some of it did go to buying supplies for the big room...but most of it went to just paying for things like food...because of adam's pay cut, we've had to dip into that money a lot. and now its gone. :(

and there's a fair amount of money out there that is owed to us by various different people...but god only knows when we'll see any of it. *sigh*

i just need to stop thinking about it...i keep telling myself this and yet i keep wallowing in the dispair of the situation about every month or 2. *sigh* because my kids lives would be truly enriched if ONLY i had that stinkin room back! and i'm ANGRY about all the crap that happened to get us in this situation! ARGH!!

ok done venting. time to focus on other things.

GOOD books!

oh man i am SO enjoying chapter books with maeven! we JUST finished heidi (which i thought i had read as a child, but i don't think i did!) what a WONDERFUL read!! i cried at times!! what a wonderful wonderful story! and what a sweet child! i am so in love with heidi now! :)

and i've just adored reading so many other great classics with maeven...before heidi we read (in no particular order):
the secret garden
stuart little
charlotte's web
my side of the mountain
the finch's fabulous furnace
mr popper's penguin
and a bunch of bobbsey twins and a variety of other littler, non-classic chapter books...

and that's not anywhere near a complete list. we go through chapter books like crazy and i'm not doing so good at keeping track of them.

next we are going to read "a little princess", which is currently waiting at the library for me to pick up...and then i think we will do "anne of green gables". all of these wonderful stories also have wonderful movies as well...so maeven enjoys seeing the movies after we finish the book. (i INSIST we read first, watch later...not the other way around.)

many of these books i read as a child (but so long ago i'd long forgotten the plots) but some that i haven't! its SOOOO enjoyable to me to finally get to read them! i'm really eager to read anne of green gables! that's one i know i never read as a child, but i've many times seen bits and pieces of the series on pbs. what a lovable character, i cannot wait to introduce anne shirley to maeven. :)

but first i promised her to read "a little princess", because she SOOOO love "the secret garden" and they are the same author. she's excited to read it and see the movie. (BOOK FIRST, though!)

i am pretty sure the language in these books go over her head many times...but i'm ok with that. she asks questions here and there...and i figure we'll revisit the stories again when she is older and more able to understand all the language. but for now, i believe it is still very good for her to be exposed to such a richness of language and plots and characters. she definitely gets into it...she gets all excited and hops around like a maniac when happy things happen in the stories, and buries her head when sad or mean things happen. she's definitely getting into them. :)

if i do nothing else for my child, i am so very proud that she is getting these opportunities to learn to love reading good quality books like these. there is so much crap out there nowadays. and yes we do still read some of that on occasion too...well not so much crap but not as good of quality...she does so love the fairy stories that she sees in the stores, so we do read those too...they are a quick read, being mostly light and fluffy with no real depth to plot or character...but that's ok. we still get plenty of meaty books to read daily as well.

surprisingly, the disney fairy stories are actually quite good (there's another series maeven loves that i am referring to when i mean the lower quality fairy stories and other like it...can't remember the name but they are rainbow fairies or something like that.) disney usually does absolute crap stories for books. picture books and chapter books. i usually avoid them like the plague. but the neverland fairy stories are amazingly good! a little dark at times...but that's to be expected with disney. but really, i thoroughly enjoyed the first book that we read in the series "fairy dust and teh quest for the egg"...the littler, shorter books in the series are not quite so good, but man that egg book was REALLY good! so i have to find more like that. but for now, we have enough to read.

i'm feeling very much better after finishing that book. i was having a really grumpy day, with a sick child and a bored child. 3rd day stuck at home. but after finishing heidi...it really have helped my mood significantly. :)

now i'm off to get some lunch made! late, as usual! ah well, so we are late eaters...for ever meal. oh well.