Thursday, May 29, 2014

Cray-Cray

Did Texas Republicans really nominate Dan Patrick for Lt. Governor?  Wow....just....wow.....

Seasons of Change

I can feel summer tapping at my window:  salt air, rushing waves, sunshine, coconut, lemonade, storms...all of that.

It's not play time for us, though.  It's graduation-and-getting-ready-to-launch-this-Girl-to-college time.  It's Permanent Honor Roll and Top Ten Banquets, graduation rehearsals, doctor and dentist appointments, phone calls to college health centers and housing and dining offices (I may write a book) and all that kind of bustling time.

Unfortunately, there is just no way to slow it all down, it seems.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Happy Children's Book Week! What Is Your Child Reading?

This is Children's Book Week and I am going to try to keep up with some posts on children's literature and reading.  Let's all talk about it, Mamas!

What are your children reading?  Any trends?

My nine-almost-ten-year old has been all about the Greek mythology this school year.  Last year was the year of Harry Potter, but nine has been the year of Rick Riordan's books.  She read both Percy Jackson series and all the books ancillary to them and deigned to dip her toe into Egyptian mythology with the Kane chronicles, which she liked, but with which she did not become so obsessed.  When she ran out of Riordan, she read Edith Hamilton's Mythology, all of the old out-of-print Myth-O-Mania books we could find and the Goddess Girls books she has been able to get her hands on so far.  She has also insisted on starting the Illiad, despite our warnings that it might be too hard for her at this point.

Anything that gets her reading like that makes me happy.  (Okay - not anything.  I told her no Twilight until she is at least in middle school, and there are plenty of others things I would not let her read at her age - but still.)

I am buying college safety and experience books for my eighteen-year-old high school senior but she is in the midst of IB testing and has no time to read them.

Please share about what are your children are reading in the comments section!

 

Those Marvelous Richards Women

While I am an admirer of her work at Planned Parenthood and a fan of the Texas Freedom Network, I did not know before today that Cecile Richards was a founder of the Texas Freedom Network.  Wow.  Ann Richards did such a good job raising that woman.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Happy Mothers' Day!!!

The daily responsibilities of motherhood can often make it really hard to attend to the wider responsibilities of it - those of making the world a place that is safe and just for all children.  Today, for instance, I will be helping the Lone Star Baby finish her science project and practice its presentation and getting the bills finished, rather than fomenting revolution as I probably should be.  And we all get pretty tired with all the working and the nurturing and could certainly use some nice toast in bed at least once a year.

I remind myself, however, of the need to remember what this day is really about and how those revolutionary responsibilities are just as important as the day to day sheltering and nurturing that we do.  We must try, Mamas.  No one else will do it for our children and our sisters - only us.  We will, as I have had lately, have seasons where the day to day takes pretty much all we can do.  There will be other seasons as well, though, and small stolen minutes in all seasons for the clicking of keys and the walking of blocks and the researching and drafting of laws, the marching....our motherly responsibilities all.

Let us remind each other.