February 16, 2012

The plus side to over a week of illness with little ones you ask? I did some reading!  With a little one tucked under my arm or head in my lap, I was able to read while they slept.  That's how I could tell that they were really under the weather.

Bringing Up Geeks (Gifted, Enthusiastic, Empowered Kids) by Marybeth Hicks was excellent and validated many of my thoughts about  our kids being exposed to way too much at way too young!
I also love the positive way that the word geek was redefined by Hicks and her children.  To raise my kids that they might be granted geek status--I can only hope and work really hard now.

There are ten rules in raising a geek.  Each chapter is geared towards identifying and giving parents practical tools and real life examples of accomplishing this such goal.  I really liked at the end of each chapter how she gave specific tips geared to the different aged groups:  elementary, middle, and high school--no age is excluded, boys and girls alike.  It is brilliant!  I found it as an excellent resource full of ideas on how to handle things to come, as well as supporting those things I am doing now that will separate my kids from the "rest of them."

Where You Left Me is a memoir of a 9/11 widow and how she came to terms with losing her husband in the attack on the World Trade Center. If there is such a thing. . . It moved me to tears at one point because I really can't even begin to imagine and as eloquent as she wrote about the aftermath of her loss, my brain still could not wrap itself around the thought of how my life would be rocked without my husband.  Honestly, I was unprepared for this book--the cover caught my attention as I quickly perused a library shelf of new arrivals.  Once I began, I finished it late that same night--praying this woman would find some peace.

I also had the good fortune of finding The Baker's Wife by Erin Healy--what a page turner this was!  It was not one that I read the back cover either--I grabbed and ran but oh, I'm so glad I did!  A preacher is asked to leave his church due to a "situation." He and his wife become owners of a bakery and they get on with their lives as they feel they are called to do; however,  there's a whole big mess that the baker's wife finds herself caught in the middle of!  I stayed up way too late and got up way too early to finish this one too!