night owl, bookworm

Let's see, it's about 2:30PM and I've just gotten up. I mean, I've sort of been up and down all morning-- feeding the baby, changing his diaper, pumping. But right now is when I can call myself FULLY up.
Baby Clover was up nursing several times in the night. He sleeps in a little buzzy chair that's attached to the pack n play right next to my side of the bed, for easy access purposes. He wakes up, I'll nurse him, and put him back in the chair. But last night was one of those nights where he was nursing so much that I would just doze while holding him, which meant that the sleep I DID get was not exactly the most restful.
So then Niall got up verrrry early to catch a verrry early plane for a business trip. And Clover and I stayed in bed, because he is currently still at an age where his favorite things are: nursing, kicking, his hands, and being held. At about 11:30 it was time for his morning nap (I *think* I can say this now- Baby Clover usually takes a morning nap for a couple hours at around 11:30ish. Now that I've said that it'll probably change, right?) so I swaddled him up in a nice cozy blankie, gave him his soother, and snuggled him up on Niall's side of the bed. We both fell asleep and woke up a couple hours later. It was heavenly. And now we're up up. Clover is on his play mat, cooing at his toys and sucking on his hand.
Today is one of those days where I think we'll just be staying in our jammies all day. It's lashing rain (don't you love that expression- Irish people and their delightful sayings) and we've got nowhere we have to be.

Clover is 3 months old, which is apparently the time when I feel it makes sense to start reading to him. He has some delightful board books (such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Jamberry) that we've been enjoying. He definitely likes it, but I'm sure he just likes the fact that I'm talking to him. Yesterday I took my car in to be serviced and they gave me a ride to the nearby mall. There was an actual real life bookstore in that mall, so we hung out in the children's section for awhile. We bought Llama Llama Red Pajama and The Runaway Bunny. And today I went on Amazon and ordered Is your Mama a Llama? (Apparently we're going with a llama theme here), The Carrot Seed, The Happy Egg, and I am a Bunny. I went on there to buy the Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls are Just Born to Lead book, which led me to The Story of Martin Luther King Jr. board book and Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters by Barack Obama (those should arrive on the 20th, so I suppose I'll read the book about Hillary Clinton and then Obama's book and then have a good long cry).
I'm planning to buy some more classics like Ferdinand the Bull and Where the Wild Things Are. And I also want to somehow get my hands on that tiny book Juniper by Robert Kraus, which seems to be out of print. It was apparently previously in this Bunny's Nutshell Library collection, but I associate it with other tiny books like Chicken Soup with Rice. And I just figured out why- apparently THAT was part of another Nutshell Library collection, which I have now added to cart. A HA! Any other book recommendations?

Girl Talk: Penned Kink

When it comes to romance novels, I was a bit of a late bloomer. I believe it was my sophomore year of college during those two months-ish when I was living in an apartment far away from everyone I knew (before I moved into the TroCoHo, the most awesome house EVER) and I didn't have a TV. I spent a lot of time reading, mostly random books I had been given or bestsellers. And then one day I was at the drugstore and I came across The Calhoun Women by Nora Roberts. And I was single and replaying my own escapades in my head wasn't quite cutting it and there was no one around to judge me, so I bought it. And then I bought the second one the next day.

The great thing about these books is that they encompassed several different kinds of lady fantasies: There is the tomboyish girl, Catherine, who starts out making smart remarks and snarking at the polished businessman and they have heated arguments and are breathing all heavily with pent-up aggression and then whoops! they start making out. And there is Amanda, the professional, practical girl who gets seduced by the burly, calloused construction worker even thought she knows she couldn't possibly be attracted to him, he's far too dirty and masculine. And Lilah, the free-spirited, long-haired hippie chick who draws the bookworm guy out of his shell and into her bed after nursing him back to health. And, finally, there is Suzanna, the sad and wounded divorcee who falls for the overprotective cop even though she never thought she could love again.

Cliche? Perhaps. But titillating? Oh my, yes.

And I've also read, um, this entire series. If things like plot inconsistencies and misspelled words bother you then I don't recommend them. But if you can get past this they are quite entertaining with snappy dialogue and delightfully light and fluffy plots. Hot vampires with raw animal passion who actually get it on (as opposed to a certain other vampire series which is a gigantic tease)? Yum.

Romance novels didn't give me an unrealistic perception of sex at a young age. Movies, TV, books without graphic descriptions of sex, gossip, magazines, and my own overactive imagination game me plenty of unrealistic ideas. Romance novels just gave me bedtime (and bathtime) entertainment and an inventory of naughty-part euphemisms... my favorite of which might have to be "throbbing member." Throbbing? Um, is it infected?

nursery rhymes

Some examples:
The Grand Old Duke of York
Oh the grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill, and he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up.
And when they were down, they were down.
And when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down.

Sounds to me like somebody got just a TAD LAZY after writing the first two lines.

Handy Spandy
Handy Spandy, Jack-a-dandy,
loves plum cake and sugar candy.
He bought some at the grocer's shop,
and out he came, hop, hop, hop!

I'm guessing he's hopped up on all that sugar candy.

Higglety, Pigglety, Pop!
Higglety, pigglety, pop!
The dog has eaten the mop,
the pig's in a hurry,
the cat's in a flurry.
Higglety, pigglety, pop!

I'm sorry. The dog has EATEN the what now?

Wee Willie Winkie
Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town.
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown.
Rapping at the window, crying through the lock.
'Are the children in their beds, it's past eight o'clock!'

Well, first of all, if the children were in their beds they sure as hell aren't now, what with all the RAPPING and CRYING. And, second of all, who the hell is this guy?? Wearing his nightgown and runs around knocking on doors at night? The town lunatic?? And, speaking of lunatics:

Gregory Griggs
Gregory Griggs, Gregory Griggs
had twenty-seven different wigs.
He wore them up, he wore them down
to please the people of the town.
He wore them east, he wore them west
but he never could tell which he loved best.

I wonder just how 'pleased' the people of the town were when they saw old be-wigged Gregory flouncing their direction.

Twilight on the Big Screen

Because everyone was talking about how amazing it is and because my classes rendered me incapable of reading anything for pleasure that would require more than 12% of my brain to stay focused and because I tend to take pleasure in the vampire romance as a book genre, I read Twilight. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I was enraptured while I was reading it and I had positive things to say about it. But after I finished it, I started teasing out little pet peeves that existed in the book and mentioning them in a kind of halfhearted, nitpicky way. I would mention little things without being able to name exactly what bugged me about the book. Fortunately, when she came to visit, Jenny was able to put into words exactly what I had felt "When you're reading the book" she said as we walked through the streets of San Francisco trying to find a bar that might serve the likes of us "you're totally into it. Because she's a captivating writer. But then you get to the end of it and you put the book down and you're like 'What the fuck??'"

Exactly. Yes. That was exactly how I felt. I was thoroughly entertained by the book while I was reading it because it made me feel like something really exciting and titillating was just around the corner, just on the next page, just keep reading and you will get to it! But that book is SUCH A TEASE. All suspense, hardly any release. All semi-soft making out, no gettin its freak on. I'm not saying it wasn't exciting, but, well, not a lot actually happens in that book. In the final 45 pages or so there is some real action but other than that the characters devote a freakishly large of their time to talking about their feelings.

So when we were walking out of the theater and my sis said "That was it?? Noting happened!" I came back with "I told you, it's a MAGIC BOOK." Nothing really happens in the book, so ta-da, nothing really happens in the movie. I thought that a lot of good decisions were made-- like tweaking the plot so there was an actual story arc. And removing whole sections of dialogue but keeping enough to make the hardcore fans happy. And making Jacob Black a-freakin-dorable (in a totally harmless way, I swear. I KNOW he's only 16. Sigh).

And even though it had many ridiculous moments (at one point my sis leaned over to me and asked, "are Edwards lips getting redder and redder between frames? Are his cheekbones getting more pronounced??") actually, I could possibly be talked in to going to see that movie again. Because I'm a sucker for the slow-motioney bits and the intense stares and the uniquely beautiful people and the music buildup. I'm totally the person who gets hoodwinked in to buying something because it comes in a pretty package or because the salesperson flatters me into it. I can be quite the airhead consumer. And I also know that the Hollywood gloss won't be quite as shiny on the small screen so I'll need to see it in the theater if I ever want to see it again. Which I guess I kinda do.... Damn it.