The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep: A Book Review

Maybe you’ve heard of it, it’s all over the major parenting news sites. Maybe you’ve trolled the over 40 pages of reviews on Amazon, mostly for a good laugh. Maybe you haven’t heard of it yet, but after reading this, you’ll go read the reviews (because seriously, great material for chuckles).

It’s The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep. A self-published book written by a psychologist in Sweden and translated into English.

It claims to make anyone fall asleep. And for a mere $12, I figured that it wouldn’t hurt. Our bedtime routine this summer had creeped up to 2+ hours, and I was seriously at my wits end. Potamus just hates going to sleep.

The plot in a nutshell, is that Roger the Rabbit is sleepy but has a hard time falling asleep. So he goes to a Wizard named Uncle Yawn, and along the way meets a few characters who give him some helpful advice. Readers are asked to emphasize the bolded sentences, and speak slowly and softly in the italicized portions, and “use your best fairytale voice.” If you can get beyond some of the strange tense changes, lots of words on each page, and home drawn pictures, to the heart of the story, then this book is great.

We were on vacation the first two nights that we started reading it. Night 1, Potamus had about 6,785 questions about the plot. “Why is Roger a rabbit? Why can’t he sleep? Where is his Daddy? Why is Uncle Yawn a person and not a rabbit?” I thought I was going to punch something. The book takes at least 25 minutes to read, so with his gazillion questions, I thought surely we were in for a long haul night (given that it was a new place).

Five minutes after the book ended?

Out like a light.

He simply turned over on his side and fell asleep.

I mean, seriously. It was magical to not have to sing 5 songs, rub his back for 30 minutes, get another glass of water, another snack, another song. Asleep.

We’ve been reading the book every night since. About 10 days in total. He asks for it at night, after his other 2-3 stories. Some nights (especially when Boof reads it in his deep man-voice) he falls asleep after a few pages. Sometimes he muscles through to the very end, but is out after 5-10 minutes of lying quietly in bed next to me. The cadence of reading, the repetition and the use of relaxation and hypnosis/guided meditation techniques, seem to help him calm his mind and body.

I’d recommend it. It’s not perfect, like anything. As an English major I have serious issue with some of the poor sentence construction, and lack of editing. But for us, it has been a very helpful tool in creating a bedtime ritual that is actually soothing for him. While bedtimes are not a snap, the fact that he’s asleep within 35-40 minutes from when we start the the process, certainly feels like magic! I’d say give it at least 3-4 times of reading it before throwing in the towel (unless the kid is older and adamantly refuses to listen to it, of course! You know your kid best!)

P.S. Every time I read the story, Boof falls asleep. Even when he tries to distract himself with his smart phone. I start reading and he starts snoring. I tell him that means he’s chronically sleep deprived…but he disagrees. Ha!

An Audience of One?

Back when I was a college Christian, there was a lot of talk about living your life as if for an “Audience of One,” which was a nice way of saying “God is watching your every move, kid, so you better not doing anything to mess up. Like get drunk, or have sex, or even think about lying to your parents.” It was pretty terrifying if you think about it, that idea that you’re always being monitored (which is probably WAY less scary for kids these days, with all the social media monitoring and such). But for someone with an anxiety disorder, the thought of measuring up to some golden standard, and that I was never truly alone, always being watched by some less-than-benevolent Creeper in the Sky.

I’ve had some rousing conversations and thoughts in the past couple of weeks on the topic of writing. Just this morning my dad, who’s visiting for the weekend, and I were talking about writing a book and how different people approach the process. Like most things in my life, I am waiting for a zap of inspiration, which I know goes against every writing book ever written. But it’s my truth. These conversations, though, have made me think about the idea of an audience. Who do we, as writers, bloggers, journallers, write for?

I know that when I write by hand, especially if it’s in anything similar to a journal, it is for myself only. My ideal self, maybe, or my higher self, but definitely I’m writing a letter of sorts to myself. This writing can be taken and turned into something for someone else, but it’s a translation process. Sure a reader could come inside my journal and read what I wrote, get it in its raw form, but I prefer that doesn’t happen, just like I prefer for nobody to read my mind. Because I enjoy the art of censoring  my own self and deciding what exactly others are given access to.

When I write, here, I imagine an audience of faceless other moms who might stumble across my words. I forget that, at this point, there are 300 something ‘followers,’ and that the people I know who actually follow along are people I really know in real life. I rarely think of them when I put words down on the page, though, and think that blogging is much like journalling, but with that added little censor or self-filter that wouldn’t happen with a pen-to-paper journal.

The thought of writing, though…really writing, like my favorite dashboard saints do, is daunting. Who is THAT audience? When JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, she had an audience in mind, right? She imagined young people reading her story. I doubt she thought it’d be as popular with adults, but I imagine she had some sort of reader in mind. C.S. Lewis is said to have created his stories for a young child in his life. He wrote the stories down for her, and they could relate to others. But who is my audience? Who am I writing these (yet to be written) stories/memories/vignettes for? If I wrote a book, who would it be for?

The further I get away from the overwhelming life changing feeling of the first few months/years of motherhood, the less I feel inclined to write to other struggling moms as my audience. My thoughts and experiences and feelings and memories cannot be boxed into that mommy-blogging idea.

The other day I posted on Facebook that I wanted a typewriter. I know it’s merely fantasy, but it’s this idea that I would type (and thus eliminate the pen-to-paper journalling feeling, skipping toward a less censored self appearing), without the instant publishability of a blog post, without the distraction of being online and in-touch to the internet world. I don’t seem to have the self-control to just type in a word document on the computer, without getting onto Facebook or WordPress. Maybe it’d feel like the accountability, to myself, of writing with fewer distractions and instant gratification. Or maybe it’s just a pipe dream.

Take the Edge Off

In class I have my students learn about their procrastination styles, and one of them, The Dreamer, appeals to me, especially as far as writing goes. The Dreamer is a type of procrastinator that spends most of their time dreaming about a project, and rarely even starting (let alone finishing) the project. I ask the question to my students, “anyone here want to write a book?” Hands sometimes raise and then I say, “but do you actually want to sit down and WRITE that book? Or do you just want it to appear.”

That’s when the class laughs, because typically my merry bunch of high school dropouts are filled with The Dreamer affliction. They’ve wanted things to happen, but haven’t quite gotten around to doing those things. Because other, cooler, things have gotten in the way. The moment takes precedent over the future self, which wants to have written a book.

While the class is comprised of all the other types of procrastination styles (taken from It’s About Time: The Six Styles of Procrastination and How to Overcome Them), I find that The Dreamer category is usually the largest. And it’s something I’ve been thinking about for quite awhile, even talking with bestie Ruth about it. Because on good days I think about the things that I want to write, the stories I want to tell, and while I’m not sure fiction lives in me, I’m certain that I have enough material for a book. Now whether I have an audience or not remains to be seen, but can’t be seen if I never even write. And I wonder about how living in 2014 affects our ability to get things done. Because blogging, a form of writing, is an instant form of gratification. I can write, not edit if I like, and send this out to at least 345 people who are currently subscribed (though based on readership numbers, only 10 or so ever actually read this. So there’s that).

Blogging takes the edge off. It’s like posting a picture to facebook for some likes but not taking the time to go out to coffee and get ‘likes’ in person. It’s like eating a power bar instead of a meal. Am I a writer who takes the edge off of that desire to have written a book. I’m a writer who thinks about writing, but rarely ever sits down to write, especially not intentionally write something with a direction of book attached to it. A blogger I can safely say I am, but a writer? And I wonder, if the pressure built up enough, and I didn’t take the edge off through blogging, would I sit down and actually WRITE?

Saving Mr. Banks- A Movie Review

I grew up with unlimited access to books, and limited access to movies. There was the allowed Winnie the Pooh, and some Disney princess films, and old timey Haley Mills films (of which The Parent Trap wasn’t high on my favorite list). Of course, Mary Poppins was on the approved list, though I remember only really loving the laughter scene, and the children’s acting in the movie that came after (The Gnomemobile…because what little girl doesn’t want to be a gnome princess?). So, when Boof suggested that our anniversary afternoon date should be spent watching a movie, one about the making of Mary Poppins, I was less than thrilled. But the options were so limited, and I figured that I could at least stand a two hour film, and HOLY COW I WAS SO WRONG TO ASSUME IT WAS GOING TO BE LAME!

This movie was awesome. It was about the author of the Mary Poppins book, and how the book became adapted to the big screen. But what I was fascinated by, was that it wasn’t some boring account of how she finally curmudgeonly agreed to make the film adaptation, as well as how she ended coming up with the concept in the first place. Overall it was a beautifully produced film, where I felt transported to different times and felt lots of strong emotions. I loved it. I loved it more than the film it was based off.

My only complaint was that Tom Hanks will always be Tom Hanks. While Walt Disney is super iconic, and Tom Hanks did a good job of coming close, I think that using a no name actor might have been more believable. It’s not so much how Tom Hanks looked, as more of how he sounded like Tom Hanks…so iconic. But the magic of the whole story line wasn’t interrupted too  much by my thinking of Apollo 13 or Forrest Gump.

So, if you’re looking for a good, nostalgic, movie to watch over the holiday season, I definitely recommend Saving Mr. Banks!

The Runaway Bunny

The Runaway Bunny is staple children’s book, one that was read to me as a kid, and one that I read recently to Potamus. Though he was mostly uninterested in it, which I believe due to the less-than-exciting pictures on each page (because how can books really compete with TV these days, anyway?)

But reading the book made me remember my childhood, and all of these conflicted emotions came flooding back. Of course it relates to being adopted, because what doesn’t these days? I recently mentioned this book in an online thread, that was about the story I Love You Forever (one I mentioned in my last blog post), where I see it as “creepy” that the mom climbs into her grown son’s room to watch him sleep. The online poster said that I was reading the story as an adult and projecting adult feelings onto it, rather than understanding the toddler’s need for a story to show something outlandish but driving home the point “I will always be your mom, no matter how big you get.”

I understood, in theory, and think that it works for many families and toddlers. But not for me. Because this story, of The Runaway Bunny, was actually frightening and made me sad as a kid. But I wasn’t able to articulate my feelings at the time. In case you don’t remember, here’s an excerpt from the story:

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”
“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you.
For you are my little bunny.”

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a fish in a trout stream 
and I will swim away from you.”

“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother,
“I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

As an adult I could read all sorts of things into this story, making it about control, and not letting a child have autonomy. Though I know the message is supposed to be ‘I love you, I will not let you get too far away from me,” I see it is “you can’t hid from me, ever, I will find you. Which feels creepy. It doesn’t say “if you are a trout in a stream, I will be sad and miss you.”

And the message felt so mixed up as an adopted kid. Because, on one hand, I desperately wanted to believe that no matter what I did my parents would be there for me. But, I, of course, knew that wasn’t the case. Because if parents, or mothers in particular, would go to the ends of the earth to find their ‘little bunny’ then where was my mom? Not my adoptive mom, I knew she was right there, but where was my other mom? And what was wrong with this little bunny that she wasn’t coming to find me? And, if she didn’t do it, then what would my adoptive mom do if I ran away? So there was sadness.

The other thought was “oh my gosh, she’s going to come find me,” in a too-terrified-to-articulate way. This idea that the mother character would change shape (become a fisherman, a mountain climber, a gardener) in order to find the bunny made me question everything around me. Was that grocery store checker my mom? Was the school bus driver my mom in secret? Who was she? When would she pop out of hiding and tell me she had found her little bunny?

Of course life isn’t like the Runaway Bunny. I hadn’t run away. I had been given away. The Giveaway Bunny hasn’t been written yet, but perhaps it needs to have its own story someday. And it wasn’t until I was an adult, reading the story to my son, did I realize “this book is full of shit, and traumatized me, and I need to find something different.”

And I have.

In the book, No Matter What, by Debi Glilori.

 

The book is gender-neutral, with a Large and Small fox characters, and the sentiment is ‘no matter what’ I will love you. But instead of the freaky-find-you-at-all-cost-if-you-run-away, the message at the end is”We may be close, we may be far,/ but our love still surrounds us…/ wherever we are.” I’ve read this one 100 times to Potamus, so many that I almost have it memorized. And it feels good to find a book that fits his needs while doesn’t trigger my own history. I highly recommend it to little ones in your life.

It’s funny, though, to be triggered by random memories from childhood. And to have words, now, to explain how I was feeling then. It makes me wish and hope for many more children’s advocates to help kids give voice to their experiences. Or even to ask the questions about how a book, or TV program, or conversation makes a kiddo feel. While I don’t know if I would have felt safe enough to say how I felt about that story, I think it would have been interesting to at least have been asked.

Have there been any books that you’ve read to your kids now that have brought back memories (good or bad) from your own childhood? Is there a story that you definitely want to pass down to your child? One you want to avoid? Tell me!

When You Were Inside Mommy

I bought this book awhile ago, in hopes to start the readings early with Potamus. I also bought a book about having another baby, but loaned that to a friend, since there’s no need for me to read a story about something that’s not happening lately. And it’s a book that Potamus has asked me to read a few times, sitting through the whole story, and patting my belly when I talk about how he used to live inside me. This is a very easy and sweet book for little ones to understand, but I have noticed so many feelings as I read it.

Because I never had books read to me like this. In fact, it wasn’t until I was an adult, and working with a gal who was pregnant, did I really come into close contact with pregnancy. Nobody I knew was pregnant, nobody talked about pregnancy other than “don’t get pregnant before you’re married.” So reading this story, and seeing how connected Potamus is to it, it made me think about my childhood. How I was the kid who answered “offices” when asked “where do babies come from?” How I felt growing up that I had just sorta ‘dropped from the sky’ and had no physical connection to my mom. It feels so different with Potamus. I am sitting there, reading a generic story about pregnancy, and I’m nodding along like “yes, you were as small as a dot. yes, you were inside mommy’s womb, right there,” as I point where my belly button is. I just wonder if I had been read stories like this as a child if I would have felt less…hatched. And then I wonder if I would have just been even more confused, as to why I grew in someone else’s belly.

I know, now, that there are more books for young adoptees, though I’m often put off by the ‘special chosen child that God put in someone else’s belly for us’ storyline that they seem to follow. But who’s going to write a children’s book about a teen who gets knocked up and they decide to give the kid to adoption because they don’t want their families fighting over custody? Yeah, that one might be hard to pitch…

I guess I was surpised. I though that since I had been pregnant, and enjoyed it, and am bonded and love having had Potamus naturally, that I would have been peaceful and love reading that story. But it makes me wistfully sad for the connection in stories that I didn’t have growing up.

Any children’s books do you read that make you feel emotions you were unprepared for?

Adoption Themes in Young Adult Literature

As an adult I can look back on my childhood and think, “wow, yeah, I was dealing with adoption related trauma,” as evidenced by the hours and hours spent playing two different games with my siblings: Lost Kids (a game where we were some version of shipwrecked and lose our parents and have to fend for ourselves in the wild on an island) and Orphans (usually orphans that had escaped an orphanage and were running from kidnappers). The literature I read, too, was full of adoptee themes…from Anne of Green Gables to The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew. All were dealing with some sort of adoption or loss-of-mother/father-theme.

But no book was as horrifying and made me question everything I had ever known, as the book The Face on the Milk Carton. The girl in the book knows she’s adopted by her grandparents. They are raising her as their own, but then one day she sees her face staring back on a Missing picture on a school milk carton. Turns out her ‘mom’ had kidnapped her and given to her ‘grandparents’ to raise. The girl in the story was about 3-4 when the kidnapping happened. Of course this memory has been sparked by the Veronica Brown case, as so many media outlets are stating that Dusten Brown (Veronica’s father) had ‘kidnapped’ her (which is media spin, since everyone has known Dusten has had custody of her for the last 19 months). I remember reading this book and thinking, “oh my gosh, what if my parents have been lying to me? What if they really kidnapped me? What if I wasn’t supposed to be adopted?”

Of course that wasn’t true, as I found out later, but the restless feelings inside me were hard to deal with…and not something that I could even give voice to at my tender age. I remember, years later, having a talk about that book with my a-cousin and she said, “oh yeah, that was the scariest book, I was worried that I would get kidnapped!” And the look of shock on her face was priceless, when I said, “well, I was always afraid that I had ALREADY BEEN kidnapped, since I’m adopted.”

What books were you obsessed with as a kid? Any looking back and thinking, “hmm, I must have been dealing with some things?”

Blue Like Jazz

In college I was assigned the book Blue Like Jazz: Non-religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality for an internship that I was doing at my local church. This book was life-changing on so many levels. The way that Don wrote about his ever shifting views of faith and religion and relating to religous people was exactly what I needed during that time of my life. It felt so real, expressing so many things that I had felt, but hadn’t been able to put into words. Characters said things like:

“And I found Jesus very disturbing, very straightforward. He wasn’t diplomatic, and yet I felt like if I met Him, He would really like me. Don, I can’t explain how freeing that was, to realize that if I met Jesus, He would like me. I never felt like that about some of the Christians on the radio. I always thought if I met those people they would yell at me. But it wasn’t like that with Jesus.”

And that was radical and true and made me feel like I wasn’t crazy in this whole trying to relate to God and The Church and Christians and the fucked-upness of so much of my fundamentalist brainwashing that took place as a child/teenager.

And it wasn’t just about the topic of spirituality, it was the way in which Don wrote about his life, weaving childhood stories in with random musings, current happenings, and future speculations. I heard, a few years after the book was popular, that some people who had loved the book were suddenly very angry with Don because they learned that his “memoir” wasn’t 100% fact, that he had, in fact, taken some creative license with his storytelling. But that made it all the more beautiful to me. That there can be truth in a story even if it’s not 100% historically accurate (which, coincidentally, is how I now view The Bible). Don’s way of writing truth, without it being historically dry facts was life-giving and has, to this day, still influenced my own writing style (at least, in my mind it has). Like, it made this whole concept of blogging for the world okay.

 

So, when I saw, on Netflix, that Blue Like Jazz had been made into an indie movie I jumped at the chance to watch it. I was really curious about how they would translate random life stories and musings into a cohesive plotline. I was excited to see the characters (Don, and Penny, and Tony the Beat Poet) all on screen. While some people go into movies with a critical eye, trying to always compare the book version to the movie, I mostly went in as a curious individual, wanting to feel connected to something larger. I haven’t read the book since 2004, so I have mostly forgotten the actual words, and am left with how the book made me feel. I guess I wanted to feel something, and so I picked this movie.

And, sadly, I was disappointed. You knew that was coming, right? I know it was a hard storyline to make into a movie, though I think there were things that could have been added, and things that could have been left out, that would have made it better. I almost think titling it Blue Like Jazz made this pressure for it to live up to a bestselling book, and this pressure for it to follow a storyline from the book, rather than trying to get to the essence of the feeling or big takeaways that people felt from reading the book. I think it got close, a couple of times, but didn’t do it justice.

For example, the character of Penny becomes a Christian in the book, and is really transformational to a lot of people simply because they see her being a loving, kind, compassionate person. She loves God and people see it. In the movie Penny’s character is good and compassionate, but there’s something about her delivery that seems like she’s just trying to be a good person, and while it’s nice, it’s not inspirational. It almost comes off as a little goody-two-shoes, which was not how the character was in the book. I think they tried in the movie, but I think it didn’t quite measure up. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t inspiring.

There were other aspects, like trying to make Don’s family life more chaotic than it appeared in the book, or focusing on other, in my opinion, more trivial details, which made me think…if Donald Miller had simply set out to create a film on non-religous thoughts on Christians spirituality (the subtitle to his book), what would it have looked like? Even if nothing but the theme had been the same, would the film have done something more for my heart?

After watching the film I started reading the book again. It read like an old friend, and I found myself laughing and nodding in parts. But I also noticed that time had done something strange to my memory. Maybe it’s because I’m in a different place, now, but I didn’t find myself as moved by it as before. I’m hoping it means that the words have just sunk into my soul and aren’t life-changing radical as before, but I’m mostly worried that I’m jaded and cynical and curmudgeony. I stopped halfway and wonder, maybe it’s better if I just leave the memory in the past? It also made me wonder…what am I searching for, longing for, that isn’t being filled by re-visiting old spiritual favorites or new indie films on the same topics? What am I looking for?

Lean In…it’s not what you think…

I was pretty appalled when Boof presented me with a book he bought off Amazon: Lean In. I even believe the words out of my mouth were, “What, you think I’m not handling the career/motherhood balance enough? You think I need to work more? Work harder?” He was flabbergasted, as he had done this as a sweet gesture based on the fact that a) I love reading, and b) had been discussing some gender discrimination that I was witnessing at work. In fact, my pre-conceived opinion of the book had been based on some bloggy articles reviewing the premise, and now that I’m 3/4 of the way through the book I assume that those individuals who made critical write-ups of Sheryl Sandburg’s philosophy had, themselves, not actually read the book, either.

What I thought was going to be the idea “lean-in to your career, get ahead at the sacrifice of your family,” is actually a well-thought-and-lived out manifesto for how strong women are and how they can be even more strategic both at home AND at work to get the maximum out of their life. It was like a breath of fresh air, particularly because I am surrounded by women who have chosen to stay-at-home full time and I often feel that I am a crazy person for LOVING my job (or, on most days, liking it about as much as I like my husband Boof whom I’m committed to forever…which says a lot more than shmoopy ‘ohmygawdmyjobisthebestest!sqeee!). I though it was going to tell me that I need to strive for high paying executive jobs (of which I have no desire…at this point), but instead it was about making myself open to the possibilities that lie before me without being afraid.

One of the biggest takeaways for me was this idea of the ways that women prevent themselves from the success they want by making sacrifices for family…before they even HAVE a family. Whoa, that hit me in the gut like a punch. Because here I am, at a job I love, but thinking silently and secretly to myself in my heart of hearts “well, if I don’t do that good of job at my administrative stuff, it won’t hurt so bad when I have a 2nd kid and either I need to take extended time off or they don’t renew my contract and find someone else.”

Um, what? The potential for getting pregnant sometime in the next 2 years has been influencing whether I do a top-notch job in the here-and-now of my job. Whoa. That’s powerful. While not going into statistics (yawn), she does say that many women begin making these type sacrifices (not going for promotions, or switching companies/jobs to something more lucrative or desirable or challenging) years before they even begin having a family (one funny anecdote was a woman doing this before she even had a boyfriend! imagine that!). But that there is an inevitable time when mothers will take some time off (be it maternity leave or extended family leave) and if they haven’t set themselves up to be where they want to be, they tend to be dissatisfied when they come back after 3 months, 3 or 10 years later. Yeah. These women feel undervalued and underpaid BECAUSE THEY ARE. They look around and see, “dang, those that weren’t parents, they took risks and now they’re getting XYZ salary, why am I still at this piddly level?”

Now maybe that’s extreme and doesn’t apply to everyone, but I sure as hell know that if I hadn’t gotten that new job (coincidentally the day that I learned I was pregnant), I wouldn’t have left that previous company because of fear of being able to do anything else while pregnant or with a child. Despite the toxic non-profit environment I was in, I would have sucked it up and likely would have had a slow soul-death in an un-fulfilling dead-end job that served me well for the first 7 months post-graduate school, but wouldn’t have sustained me 3 years later.

This book validated my desires and reminded me not to feel bad for the 3 jobs in 2.5 years that I took because I was career advancing and now I am in my “dream job,” though I know that there is so much more that I want to contribute at the collegiate level in different capacities. It might mean more schooling or moving colleges, but it certainly doesn’t mean willfully sitting on pinterest for 8 hours a day to set myself up for handling the rejection if I can’t come back after a hypothetical 2nd kid comes along, ya know?

Now I haven’t agreed with everything she says, but it has given me a lot to chew on and has validated my experience as a working-mom, or, as she says a ‘career loving parent,” because that’s the truth: I absolutely adore and love Potamus, and I also know that I am built to be leaning-in to a career that fulfills me, too!

What dreams may come?

My dreams have been intense lately, like last night’s adventures that were interupted by my own snoring. There had been flying, by me and others close to me, and there had been labor. Lots of babies being born and one friend in particular who somehow was giving birth naturally, though I know she had just had a C-section a few days ago. I was helping deliver her baby, in the dream, but I can’t quite sort out my role in the whole adventure, now that I’m awake. Because I had a camera and was taking pictures, but also had the feelings that I imagine a doula or midwife might feel. The dream was filled with other women given birth, so many babies, and also, flying. Did I mention the flying already? Flying dreams usually mean that my life is going well, or that I feel in control, which, in the light of day doesn’t seem to be that way at all.

I think the intensity of my dreams is influenced by all the reading I’ve been doing. While I’ve managed to read a few books for pleasure since Potamus has been born, it’s felt like  A LONG time since I’ve really gotten into a book series, rather than sporadically picking up a book and reading it on a whim. But the other day I was at Costco and saw an intriguing book that seemed to fit my interest in things related to motherhood AND fit my interest in mystery/thrillers. The author, Sophie Hannah, has written several books and after I was 1/2 way through the book I bought from Costco, I had ordered a few more on Amazon, and have since bought a few via Kindle. Yeah, I’m on my 4th book…in A WEEK! Holy Moly! At this rate I’ll have read all her books in a month.

But, the characters she has created, and the plots that she has woven so masterfully together, leave me inspired and chilled and totally mesmerized. I love whodunit type novels, as it makes my brain work while I’m reading, trying all the while to figure out who the ‘bad guy’ is and why they’re acting the way they are. These books are written so well that the psychological aspect of the ‘why?’ keeps me guessing and it feels, at the end, like my mind has been sharpened. But in the midst, my heart and mind is racing, and I’ve found that I’m okay putting the book down halfway through, but once I pass the 75% mark, I definitely need to have time to finish the rest or my mind whirls and I can’t focus on things like…sleeping…

Before I went to bed last night, Boof and I laid next to each other and tried to re-connect. I’d been feeling shitty about how much I complain about his workload, but I know that he’s struggling with it, too. I know that quality time is one of my cheesy languages of love, and so not having him around causes me to get irritated. But I do see how hard he’s working and I want to stop nagging and being a crazy psycho about it all. I think some of my craziness has been due to my fear about trying to expand our family to another child. We talked frankly about our desire for another (hopefully daughter, but welcomed son, too) and how two is the max, how we don’t want a 3rd. But I talked about having enough patience for it all.

So I think the intensity of having several friends giving birth, paired with these well crafted psychological thriller books about mothers and crime, paired with my own wrestling around having another child, is causing my dreams to go to a whole other level.