Thankfully Reading Weekend 2012 Kick-Off

Yesterday was the first day of Thankfully Reading Weekend, hosted by Jenn’s Bookshelves. I actually managed to stay off the computer all day yesterday so I’m posting my kick-off post today.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful. Because I’m still recovering everyone else pitched in and made all of the dishes I normally make. It was the most relaxing Thanksgiving ever! I even sneaked off for a short nap after dinner and then did a little reading while a very intense Uno game was being played in the other room.

We didn’t have a lot of bookish conversation during dinner but we did talk about Life of Pi. Several people in my family said they had tried to read the book but couldn’t get into it and didn’t finish. However, all agreed that the movies looks like it will be really good. I haven’t read the book and I probably won’t have time to before I see the movie. I will try to read it at some point though.

This weekend I plan to finish my current read, And Laughter Fell from the Sky and then read River Town, which I need to read before my book club meets on Tuesday. I’m not sure what I’ll read next after that.

Happy Thanksgiving…

From me and my little turkeys:

Middle Grade Book Review: Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Release Date: August 7, 2007
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Emmy feels like she’s invisible. No one notices her at school and her parents are always traveling, leaving her at home with her crotchety Nanny, Miss Barmy. Emmy tries her hardest to be good but she can never seem to please Miss Barmy. One day the classroom pet, the Rat, not only notices her but starts talking to her! Is he a good rat or a bad rat? And how is it that he can talk and Emmy can understand him?

I liked that this book was dark without being too scary or too suspenseful. Emmy’s parents are absent most of the time, but not dead like parents are in a lot of fantasy books. My first grader is super sensitive and can’t read books or watch movies with dead parents. It was also funny and has some grossness that kids will love. Even though Emmy is a girl, this is not a “girly” book and should appeal to both girls and boys. There is plenty of action, mystery and fantasy.

This middle grade book is geared toward three-six graders. My second grader, who reads at probably a third or fourth grade level, read this book to himself and loved it. He had no problem comprehending the plot. I read this book aloud to my first grader, who also loved the book but a little trouble connecting the dots when Emmy started to solve the mystery of the talking Rat and the evil Miss Barmy. When I sensed he wasn’t getting something, I would stop reading and discuss with him what he thought was happening and then help him to understand it better. With this help, he was also able to comprehend the book and he also loved it. His favorite part was the flipbook on the right margin. As you read the book, there are pictures of the Rat slowly falling out of a tree. It was a fun way to track our progress through the book

My boys and I read this book for the Intergenerational Book Club at our church. The facilitator of the book club came up with some really fun activities to go along with our discussion. We always have food that relates to the book so she brought miniature peanut butter cups, which are the Rat’s favorite snack. Also mentioned in the book are jam tarts. She found some cookies with jam in the middle and brought those. In the book, Emmy makes a chinchilla foot out of clay so the facilitator brought some modeling clay and a picture of a chinchilla. The kids had a blast making their own chinchilla feet. And the piece de resistance (for the kids anyway!) was the whoopee cushion she brought for them to take turns playing with. Farting plays a significant part in one part of the book, much to my disgust and all the children’s delight.

This book is the first in a series that includes at least three books so far. My boys were delighted to know that there were more books about Emmy waiting for them to read – a ringing endorsement for sure!

Buy this book at:
Amazon Powell’s Books

For more reviews of books for children and teens, check out Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, you can go to her site to leave a comment and your link .

Children’s Book Review: Old MacDonald Had a Dragon

Old MacDonald Had a Dragon by Ken Baker
Publisher: Amazon Children’s Publishing
Release Date: October 9, 2012
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Old MacDonald Had a Dragon, the farmer has a dragon who systematically swallows up the other farm animals when they complain that a dragon has no place on a farm.

The illustrations in this book are bright and colorful. The story was silly and I personally didn’t find it terribly original. However, my six and eight year old boys both gave it a thumbs up and said they thought it was funny. It also taught them some new expressions, which may or may not be a good thing: dog-gone, two-bit and having a “beef” with someone.

And don’t worry (SPOILER ALERT) – everyone gets burped out of the dragon in the end and avoids permanent injury.

Buy this book at:
Amazon

(I received this book courtesy of the Amazon Vine program.)

For more reviews of books for children and teens, check out Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, you can go to her site to leave a comment and your link .

Page to Screen: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Breaking Dawn – Part 2 was a great ending to the Twilight series. The screenwriter did a great job of trimming down the last half of the book into a concise and action packed movie. Thankfully, there are no cheesy wolf talking scenes like in the first Breaking Dawn. However, I was not a fan of baby Renesmee. The director digitally imposed actress Mackenzie Foy’s face onto all the younger versions of Renesmee. The result was unrealistic and creepy, especially when Renesmee is still the size of an infant. I think just using a real baby’s face would have been fine.

This movie introduces several new vampires that come to help the Cullens confront the Volturi. The casting of these new vampires was superb. They all looked just like I would have expected from their descriptions in the book. Seeing how beautiful the female Denali vampires are just underscored in my mind how miscast Nikki Reed is as Rosalie. Since Rosalie is supposed to be one of the most beautiful vampires ever, she should look like these women. Something is especially wrong about Rosalie’s hair in this movie – I’m pretty sure it’s a wig and it’s really bad. I think a natural blonde should have been cast as Rosalie from the beginning.

You may have heard there is a twist in the movie that is not in the book. It’s true and it took my breath away. I’ve heard that purists who are not happy with the twist have been walking out before the movie ends. STAY! You must stay – that is all I will say about that.

I’ve heard rumors that there might be more Twilight movies even though there aren’t any more books. What do you think – would you want another movie?

Plodding Along

I still have not been able to get my head back into reading here in the hospital. I didn’t sleep very well the night before last so I was too exhausted to read yesterday. My sweet husband borrowed a fan from the hotel he’s staying at and snuck it over to my hospital room so I had white noise to help me sleep last night.

I do have some bookish news to report. My good friend from college who lives in Minneapolis made the drive down to visit me yesterday and she brought me a copy of Nothing Special by Geoff Herbach. It’s the sequel to his debut novel Stupid Fast, which I read last year (based on her recommendation) and loved. It was so nice to catch up with an old friend, even though it probably would have been more fun over a glass of wine or two than in my hospital room!

Sunday Salon: Post-Surgery Edition

My surgery went well Friday morning. I slept pretty much all day Friday but I had quite a bit of energy yesterday and sat in a chair and walked the halls most of the day. Whenever I’m in the hospital, I always find it funny how much sitting in a chair is emphasized as a sign of great progress. I never thought sitting in a chair was that much harder than sitting propped up in bed but apparently it is! I haven’t done any reading since my surgery because my brain is still a little fuzzy – too fuzzy to write any of my back-logged reviews also. So I’ll leave you with a photo of me and my guts from yesterday afternoon:

Kids Say (and Do) the Darndest Things

West left a note on my bedside table while I was taking a nap. It said, “I love you so much I could marry you.”

*****

West really wants a pocket knife so I told him that if he could go a week without hitting, kicking, or biting Cash that I would buy him one. He said he’ll just get one when he turns 18 and moves out.

*****

West: We should pay people to be our servants and bring us snacks while we lay on the couch. I want a robot servant for Christmas.

*****

West: I have 3,000 spaces in my brain for photos or video.

*****

West: Daddy, how many tons do you weigh?

*****

Mommy, have you heard of a time toilet?
Cash, quit talking about gross stuff.
Actually Mommy, it’s awesome because you travel either forward or backward in time when you go potty in it.

*****

Cash, can you ask your teacher to send home another copy of that note? I can’t find the first one you brought home.
Mommy, if I ask her that, she’s going to think you’re a crazy person.

*****

Cash, running into hall above living room, “Mommy, I can’t sleep.” Me: “Have you tried closing your eyes?” Cash, “No”, runs back into bed.

*****

Cash: I want to watch the debate.
Me: You can watch it tomorrow; I’m taping it.
Cash: You’re whating it? What does taping mean?
Me: *feels very old*

Surgery Day

I’m reporting for surgery at 6:45am this morning. I want to thank all my family and friends (both “real-life” and online) for all of the prayers, good thoughts, and support during this time. As soon as I feel well enough to blog, I’ll be sure and update you all on how I’m doing. I know, especially for my Facebook friends, my medical updates are probably getting tiring. Hopefully after I recover from this surgery, I can stop with the annoying medical updates and start posting annoying updates about my goal to run a marathon before my fortieth birthday.

A funny story from this morning: I needed an IV put in before the flexible sigmoidoscopy for the sedation. Since I was having a CAT scan afterwards, they needed to use a larger gauge needle so that the IV would work for the CAT scan contrast as well. When the nurse put in the IV, it hurt REALLY bad. It felt like the needle was poking me all the way down to my wrist. As you can imagine, I’ve had several hundred IVs in my life so I knew that this was not normal. I told the nurse that it really hurt and that the crook of my elbow where the needle was inserted was throbbing. She chalked it up to the larger needle (which I’m sure I’ve had before because I’ve had several CAT scans). I was dubious but I figured since she was the nurse she was probably right. Then she flushed it with saline and said that I should be feeling cool rush in my arm and a salty taste in my mouth. I know this, having felt it several times before. This time not only did I not feel the cool sensation from the saline going in but it actually hurt and it felt like my bicep was getting swollen. Again I told the nurse that something was not right and again she told me that the IV flushed just fine.

Fast forward to the procedure room where they give you the sweet, sweet medicine that makes you fall asleep. The procedure nurse (a different nurse from the one who put in my IV) pushed in the meds and …. nothing. Usually I’m asleep before the syringe of milky nectar is empty. I noticed that the doctor had moved into position behind me and that the nurse was getting some supplies ready. “Um, am I supposed to be asleep?” I asked. Yes, I was according to the doctor and nurse, who were both looking very surprised and confused. The nurse gave me another syringe of the good stuff and still nothing. No dreamy, fuzzy feeling at all. At this point, I was getting really worried that I was going to have to have this procedure awake. Why weren’t my little narcotic friends doing their job?

At this point, I explained the problems I had in the IV room. The procedure nurse poked and rubbed my bicep and determined that for whatever reason I needed a new IV. She took out the old and moved the new one to a different spot on my arm. Within minutes I was floating away to my happy place. I hope I can find my happy place a lot easier this morning!

(I’m also wondering if there is any way to siphon the medicine from first two syringes of medicine out of bicep so that I can save it for later. Yum.)

Pre-Surgery Scramble

This post is to show you both how amazing the Mayo Clinic is and to make you feel sorry for me. Mostly to show you how amazing Mayo Clinic is though. They know that my time is precious since I’m coming in from out of town and leaving my babies behind so they packed what would probably normally have been several days worth of appointments all into one day. This is my schedule for today:

6:55am Blood Tests
7:45am Sedated Flex Sig (like a colonoscopy but only goes into the sigmoid colon)
10:45am Chest CT Scan (somehow the sedation will have worn off enough for me to take instruction on holding my breath for approximately 45 minutes? I’m interested to see how this actually turns out)
1:00pm Consultation with a stoma nurse
2:15pm Infectious disease consult
4:30pm Consultation with colo-rectal surgeon
5:00pm Appointment the GI Doc who is in charge of my case

I don’t really see much time for napping in between each appointment. I’ve never had a sedated procedure and then not taken a very long nap afterwards. Luckily, my husband will be with me this time so he can carry me from appointment to appointment.