Bumblebee Sweet Potato

I hope you all had a lovely Mother’s Day (if you’re a mother), or you just got to sleep in on a Sunday (if you’re not). My favorite moment of the morning was when I came down the stairs (after being summoned to breakfast) to see the Potato acting as a maitre d’, asking me if I had a reservation. I could have eaten him for breakfast!

But Mother’s Day is over now, and I’m back to my usually snarky self. Here’s my new favorite political blog:

Things younger than McCain

H/T landisdad. Enjoy!

Although at times I thought it might.

It did, however, take me over three years. In fact, the only New Year’s resolution that I made this year was either to finish it, or to stop even trying to read it. And I’m finally done.

I feel a huge sense of accomplishment, not least because I’ve already in my life abandoned one of Jane Smiley’s books (The Greenlanders—oy, the names, it’s worse than a Russian novel) , and I like her too much as a writer to have two unfinished books by her on my shelf.

Now, having finished it, I wish I had read it backwards. But first, the back story from the dust jacket:

…in the wake of 9/11, Smiley faltered in her hitherto unflagging impulse to write and decided to approach novels from a different angle: she read one hundred of them, from classics such as the thousand-year-old Tale of Genjii to recent fiction by Zadie Smith, Nicholson Baker and Alice Munro.

If I had read it backwards (or if Smiley had organized the book differently), I think I would have had a more successful experience, and not felt the need to drag out my reading of it for such a prolonged amount of time. While there’s no question that Smiley is more widely read than I am, it would have helped me, in reading her analysis of various forms of fiction, to have first read her essays about the 100 novels she read in the post-9/11 world.

It’s not that I expected that both of us would love the same books. But it might have, for example, helped me to understand her writing about writing better, had I known in advance that she is not a fan of The Great Gatsby, which is one of my favorite books. I can’t explain my love of that book in as clear a method as she explains her disdain for it, but still, knowing her feelings about that–and the other books that are in her 100 that I’ve read–would have helped me to better understand the arguments she was trying to make about the novel.

That being said, I’m happy to have read it (and happier still to be done with it). And now, I can finally go back to reading her fiction—I’ve had a copy of Ten Days in the Hills for about six months, but I vowed to get through this opus (or give it up for good) before I cracked the cover.

that I dreamt I was playing scrabulous last night?

I might have a problem…

My favorite dad-blogger, MetroDad, wrote a post last week that I really enjoyed which consisted of questions to other parents. I liked it so much, I’m ripping it off.

Why does my daughter insist on wearing her batting helmet onto the field when she’s playing softball? Is this a sign that she’s destined to be one of the uncool kids?

If a four-year-old boy and a gnat are in the same room, which one will get distracted first? What if there are legos in the room? How does the equation change if there are dinosaurs? Train sets?

Is it wrong for me to refuse to let my children watch the movie Alvin & The Chipmunks in a movie theater, and instead Netflix it so that I don’t have to be in the same room with that singing?

Is it a sign that I’m getting old that I can no longer listen to my beloved hip hop, because I can’t listen to one more song that references a stripper pole? Didn’t there used to be lots of popular music that didn’t talk about strippers?

When I’ve repeatedly warned a certain child that she’s going to be late to her softball game if she doesn’t put her cleats on right now, why is it my fault when she actually is late?

Which of the following scenarios is likely to happen soonest: 1) the parents who decide that it’s okay for them to block the entrance to the daycare with their cars will have a change of heart or 2) the Potato will enter kindergarten and stop going to daycare?

At what age will I stop carrying crayons with me everywhere that I go?

When I finally do break down and get a cell phone for my kid (which is still years in the future), what will she set her sights on next, a fake ID?

Is the rate at which a child outgrows a pair of pants directly related to the amount of money that one spent on those pants?

If you only have one pen in your purse, and that pen is hot pink and has a Polly Pocket doll on the end, is it acceptable to use that pen in a meeting? with your boss?

At what age can I expect that my child will use the bathroom when he needs to, instead of insisting that he doesn’t need to pee while hopping up and down in a frantic manner?

If a child’s friend, when entering one’s house for the first time, exclaims, “this is the messiest house I’ve ever been in!,” is it socially acceptable to send her home with a dust-bunny in her pocket?

Answers in the comments—or questions of your own—are welcome!