Few and Far Between...

It's funny to me that my blog has drifted into what I initially expected it to be at it's conception (VAST majority of book blogs, with a few personal journals mixed in), only to find that I feel I am neglecting the personal aspect! I guess once Dominic was born I got in the habit of posting personal stuff all the time and now I feel like I am missing out on updating on Dominic. But now that he is on the move I have far less time to blog!!

Yes. That's right. My baby is a butt scooting extraordinaire! That little guy can butt scoot around our whole main floor of our house in no time. It has made him fiercely independent and keeps me on my toes. He is also pulling to a stand with very little assistance (he mostly needs help with his balance, that pesky stroke is at the heart of these problems again), and he now has a standing contraption on loan from the Alvin Buckwold Child Development Program in order to get his strength up to stand on his own without him needing to worry about his balance. We get him in it one to two times a day for about 20-30 minutes per time and he loves it.

The most exciting thing that Dominic has done recently is that he has started to use his left hand to do things unprompted. Just little things. For example he and I were playing a game on the computer where he just has to push any key on the keyboard and a little robot will do things on the screen, and he was opting to balance himself with his right hand and push the buttons with his left fist. This may seem like something so little, but it honestly had me in tears. Trust me, ALL of his therapists in every capacity know that he did this because I raved about it when it happened. It has given me so much more hope for his future abilities. Don't get me wrong, it's not like he did nothing with his left hand before, but he mostly just used it as a method to balancing, and small two handed activities (like bracing something to grab with his right hand, or clapping). So... pushing buttons is a HUGE step.

My little man is doing better all the time!

Choosing My Next Book.

Considering the number of books I have in my house, the list of "to read" books, free ebooks I have downloaded, and my wishlist of available ebooks from the library, I really shouldn't have any difficulty picking up a new book after I complete another. But I do.

Big picture, I think my problem is an overabundance of selection. I know, I know -- it sounds more like a blessing than a problem, but is a slight struggle (even if it is one I am more than willing to accept ;) )

One of the aspects that comes in to effect my decision is accessibility. As much as I LOVE reading an actual, real life book, they are not as accessible at all times as an ebook. When I am feeding Dominic, or sitting and watching the kids play, or at the pharmacy and have to wait a few minutes for a prescription, I do not always have my book with me... unless it's on my phone. I rarely go anywhere without my phone, so even a 5 minute opportunity offers me time to read. More than likely during those 5 minute opportunities, if I am reading an actual book, it is sitting on my bedside table, out of reach. Whereas my phone will be in my pocket or purse. OR the other time ebooks come in handy is when Roland is already in bed and I want to read one more chapter*. Reading on my phone means I can lift up the covers so the screen doesn't shine in his face and I can read to my hearts delight. I also enjoy that I read my ebooks so much faster than my real books, mostly because I have them on me all the time. How fast I read my books makes my GoodReads account look better, I think**.

But I love my real books. I look longingly at my bookshelf in my room of unread books, but lately I am more drawn to my ebooks. As much as I love cuddling up with a real book in bed, sometimes that's not enough to win me over....

The next consideration is what type of book I am due for. I hate reading too many Young Adult or Chick Lit in a row because I feel it ruins my book street cred***. Plus I pride myself on my eclectic tastes in books, so I prefer to spread around the love in genre form. So what did I read last? What would the balance be? Am I ready to commit to reading another Non-Fiction this year? Do I need something light or heavy? Do I want something simple or something that challenges my opinions or viewpoints? All of these things need to be considered before I can just leap into a new book.

So the question remains... what the heck am I going to read next?


*It's never really only one more chapter.
** As a side not, everyone needs to either update their GoodReads account more often, or sign up for GoodReads if you haven't already. Sometimes all it takes to make my day is to see what someone thought of a book I have never read. The saddest day this week was a day that I went 24 hours without ANYONE updating their goodreads account. I was borderline depressed that day. 
*** I'm only really half kidding here

Dumplin'

Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked…until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.

Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.

With starry Texas nights, red candy suckers, Dolly Parton songs, and a wildly unforgettable heroine—Dumplin’ is guaranteed to steal your heart. 



It's safe to say I enjoyed this book. As with many Young Adult novels, it was really fun and goofy at times, and for the most part, really positive and uplifting.

I think one of the most important messages this book has to offer is that even the most confident people have their insecurities at some point. They may be very well hidden even if they are a constant in a person's life, or they could be only temporary under special circumstances. We ALL have our weaknesses and weak moments. And they can stem from a multitude of different things. The could be appearence related, or intellegence, monetary, status... any basis really for any person. It is not unusual. And that is OK. It's a struggle to overcome, and everyone has them.

As much as this is a "body positive" book, I think it's important that the book validates that everyone needs to feel beautiful. That doesn't mean that you need to buy into what the media presents as beautiful-- you do not need to be a size 00 in order to be beautiful. Willowdean excels at this in the novel and really is a role model for all women. She knows who she is and doesn't compromise that. She is herself to the fullest the way that I could only wish I could be. 

The problem with this book is that I found there were too many unanswered questions at the end of it. I don't think it needs an entire sequel, but an epilogue would have been nice.

This is one of those books that I think all women could takes something from. And after you're done reading it, get your teenage (or maybe even preteen) daughter to read it. Talk about it. Hopefully you will make a positive connection over it.  

Annabel

Kathleen Winter’s luminous debut novel is a deeply affecting portrait of life in an enchanting seaside town and the trials of growing up unique in a restrictive environment. 

In 1968, into the devastating, spare atmosphere of the remote coastal town of Labrador, Canada, a child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor fully girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret: the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbor and midwife, Thomasina. Though Treadway makes the difficult decision to raise the child as a boy named Wayne, the women continue to quietly nurture the boy’s female side. And as Wayne grows into adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting society of his father, his shadow-self, a girl he thinks of as "Annabel," is never entirely extinguished.

Kathleen Winter has crafted a literary gem about the urge to unveil mysterious truth in a culture that shuns contradiction, and the body’s insistence on coming home. A daringly unusual debut full of unforgettable beauty, Annabel introduces a remarkable new voice to American readers. 


This book made me realize something about myself that I had never thought about before. Apparently, I have very strong opinions about how to raise a child that is not specifically male or female. I have never met a child or adult (that I know of) that is or has been considered Intersexed (from my research, I have discovered that this the politically correct term for Human Hermaphroditism), but I became particularly emotional when Wayne's parents made decisions about how to raise him that I felt were constrictive before they even knew who he would grow up to be. I needed to remind myself that in this book Wayne was born in the 60s and things were quite different back then, but that didn't stop me from thinking about how I would do things differently, and what I would feel would be far less damaging to a child's self image and esteem. 

I was also very aware of how people place far too much concern on gender. After going through everything I have with my youngest, I understand how advantageous it can be to have surgeries as young as possible, but one that is so determinant of self image and gender identity seems reckless. How can you choose a sex for a child before having them develop a personality, realize their tendencies, and possibly include their wishes? I get the feeling from this novel that perhaps people were more invested in the idea of nurture over nature at the time, and figured that as long as you raise your child in such a way that encourages a certain sex, then your child will become more gender identified with it (Could you imagine if it was that easy?: You want your child to be a doctor? Buy your child doctor toys and they will be a doctor!! Horray!). However, now we have a greater understanding of what creates a person's identity and it is far more a combination of the two than it is either nurture or nature.

There was a line that really hit home for me early in the book, just shortly after Wayne was born: His mom says: "when you are a mother, you take it all in stride. You take albino hair in stride, when you are a mother. When you are the mother, not someone watching that mother, you take odd coloured eyes in stride. You take a missing hand in stride and the same with Down Syndrome, and spina bifida, and water on the brain. You would take wings in stride, or one lung outside the body, or a missing tongue." This is exactly how I felt about Dominic's diagnosis and I feel is a great depiction of parenthood. People always said how they didn't understand how I could handle everything so well when Dominic was diagnosed with everything he was diagnosed with. As a mom, you just take it all in stride. It can always be worse, until it can't, and that is when you break. Until that point, it's just another fact about your child. It doesn't change how you love them, it just makes you more aware of their struggles.

Also, this book made me want to hug and snuggle all the babies. Especially ones that have a rough start or a tough situation. As soon as the baby was born (before baby was even named) I just felt this huge urge to cuddle this baby that wasn't considered "normal", to whisper to this baby that everything will be fine and people will send love regardless of the gender that was chosen. That things would be tough, but s/he wasn't all that different, not a "freak" if anyone dared to call him/her that. S/he was just a baby, and someone to be loved and cuddled like everyone else. Perhaps I think love and cuddles will make everything alright, but so far it seems to have worked for Dominic ;)

This really was a good book, but still wasn't a five-star rating in my opinion. The biggest fault it had was some errors in facts about true intersexed individuals. Through some fact checking I came to realize one particular aspect of the story would technically make this a science fiction novel. I won't get into specifics about it due to spoilers, but know that not all the information presented about intesexed people is likely, or even at all possible. It gave me a lot to think about, which is something I really value in a novel. It did have a few parts in it that seemed to slow down the pace and lose my attention for a bit though. It was good, it just wasn't perfect.