Yesterday I read this post by Miss Amber, and when it lead me to the old bit about getting rid of all of her books, my heart seized up a little bit. In awe mostly, and in a jumble of “HOW DO YOU GET RID OF ALL YOUR BOOKS OH MY GOD HOW YOU DECIDE HOW DO YOU GO THROUGH WITH IT DON’T YOU KEEP ANY???” types of thoughts.

I know that having lots of books can just be a form of vanity, and in this respect Mikey and I are most certainly doomed. Probably Hazel too, since her third word (after Dada and Mama) was “books”. I’ve been a lot better over the past year, though. I sent about a box and a half of books to the freestore over the course of the year before we moved, and during the multiple snow-ins this winter I scoured boxes and shelves for more to list on swaptree. I realize that this ensures MORE things coming right back into our house, but in most cases, actually, because it’s much bigger than it used to be and allows more varied 3-way trades, my old high school novels (and stuff) have gone out and been replaced with music, movies, books for Mikey’s studies and for Hazel. I am starting to feel more comfortable with the books that ARE on our shelves, because I can look at them and know that I will read them again (I’m a voracious re-reader – I have seasonal books like I have seasonal music). Mikey has been better, too, as his dissertation topic gets further and further narrowed down, and as he gets further away from the campus-ministry life he’s gotten rid of A LOT of books. You wouldn’t know it to look at his shelves, but boxes and boxes and boxes have left our possession – I’d say at least ten over the past few years.

June 2009

This kid, though, constantly has books coming in. And I don’t want to stop it. People buy her books all the time. WE buy her books all the time. Her librarian-grandma has a new book for her almost every time we see her. If she gets a dollar or two in a card from someone we save it until the next trip to Goodwill or the consignment shop, where it seems that elementary school teachers often unload their entire collection of scholastic paperbacks in one go, and they are sold for a quarter (or fifty percent off if we are lucky). Target has had some really cute books in their dollar bins lately, too. TJ Maxx sells their banged-up boardbooks for a buck, and I know she’s going to bang them up in two hours anyway so who cares. Gabes has recently had a shelf of amazing books for 2.99. She has a full short billy bookcase, baskets of books in the livingroom and bedroom, books in the car – she is constantly swimming in books. And she loves it. Between us reading to her and her “reading” to herself, she goes through about 25 books a day on most days. She plays with her alphabet fridge magnets or the foam letters for the bathtub that belong to Ella and says “an alphabet” of one-syllable “letters”. If she’s totally on her game she points to the letter D and says “dog!” She knows that you read from left to right and down a page, and will “read” to herself, following the words with her fingers. I always predicted it would be the art, but the reading has turned out to be one of my most favorite things about having a little kid.

September 2009

Here are some gifted, thrifted, and swapped books that we’ve been enjoying over the past couple of months:

The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle
Go Dog Go by P. D. Eastman
Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin
Do You Want to Be My Friend? by Eric Carle
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Pond Circle by Betsy Franco
I’m Not too Little to Help the Earth by W. Y. Taylor
Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens
No Moon, No Milk by Chris Babcock
In Grandma’s Arms by Jayne C. Shelton
Chicka Chicka ABC by Bill Martin Jr.
Sing a Song of People by Lois Lenski
Flower Garden by Eve Bunting
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

Here’s some stuff I’ve been working on – or at least intending to work on – over the past week:

Bunnies for Hazel. As you can see, I got no further than printing out the free pattern and choosing fabrics before Hazel woke up. I love them but now that they’ve been sitting here for two days I’m starting to think maybe they are too drab… I might dive back into my stash for something more colorful.

Working on stuff for inclusion in April’s Spotted Box, which I agreed to on a whim and am very excited about – I did one in 2008 and kind of flipped out when my own box came in the mail!

The blue & gold blanket, which I only seem to work on when Hazel is teething. It’s always laying around in a heap somewhere, trailing its two balls of yarn, and when I want to work on it I have to hunt down my (gigantic, purple acrylic, very enticing) crochet hook because Hazel has always found and hoarded it away for her own crochet hook needs, which usually involves lots of waving it at the dog. I’ve lost count since January, but I’ve used a huge one pound ball and a half of the gold, and I think I’m on my sixth ball of homespun. I don’t really see an end in sight for this blanket.

And the work of raising little war resisters… I think a group reading of The Butter Battle Book is notable progress :)