The need for cytotoxic therapies...

After Molly falls asleep, I stop her documentary -- whichever it happens to be -- and prepare to watch one of my favourite shows: BBC's Doc Martin. I'm halfway through the 5th (and awaiting the 6th) series.

It's set in Cornwall, England, and tells the story of a prominent surgeon whose development of hemophobia leads him to the quieter life of a country doctor in a familiar village.

Martin Ellingham is a middle-aged, humourless professional who does not suffer fools gladly. In turns he is bluntly honest, oblivious to social expectations, and too impatient to indulge anyone in meaningless chatter. In contrast to his arrogant demeanour, he bears the public truth of his aversion to blood with quiet humility.

This surgeon hails from a family of physicians and a circle of colleagues who practice serious medicine, so we can well sense the embarrassment in his predicament. (The cliches -- that it underscores the seeming randomness with which misfortune can suddenly attend any one of us as well as the frailty that connects us -- hold true.)

He demonstrates his competence as a general practitioner beyond question. Much of the show's humour surrounds the unique complexities of the role of physician in the dual agency that providing rural health care often requires: such doctors daily encounter patients in social settings, friends and foes appear, and professional boundaries blur. In the case of a village, the details of a doctor's private life are held no more privately than those of its other residents.

While the doctor's annoyance at the villagers' intrusive familiarity ought to be checked by the villagers' reaction to his gruff exterior and unmannerly conversational style of delivering his precise diagnoses and in managing relationships, it is not. Ellingham fits in because there is just as much pressure upon him to forge this new life for himself as there is pressure upon the villagers to tolerate him -- they need each other.

To the surprise of all, he manages to develop an intimate relationship with a local woman (Louisa) whose wavering tolerance for brash, unexpected behaviour allows her to find a quasi-comfortable role as his significant other and, eventually, as the mother of his child. 

Some weeks after the birth of their baby, Louisa prepares to go out for the night with a friend for the first time since giving birth. As she leaves, she instructs Martin to read to the baby. Martin agrees but mildly protests considering the obvious cognitive limitations of an infant.

Yet, upon Louisa's return, she quietly observes Martin reading to their baby from a medical journal -- on the need to focus on cytotoxic therapies for cancer patients.

It is such a wonderful scene. The doctor's stiff, arm's-length 'cuddle' that we have seen several times since the baby's birth has been replaced with an earnest attempt to connect -- in his own way -- with his smiling, clearly responsive son.

Timing is everything - Amended

This morning, I find it necessary to talk to Molly (and remind Devyn) about certain relationship pitfalls, such as claiming a classmate hit you if he did not, actually, hit you.

Besides the obvious annoyance, inconvenience, and injustice for the accused (who will sit in time-out wondering how his life has come to this), there is also the risk that a teacher at school might not believe you should you report a subsequent (this time, actual) injury.

Hurriedly, I help Molly with her coat as Keith prepares to head out the door.

-- I'm sorry, but we really have to go. Now.

Clearly, this is a good time to blurt out what has to be the world's fastest retell of the Boy Who Cried Wolf fable, and I rush, in a single breath, to the end:

-- And that's where the expression 'never cry wolf' comes from. Now. Molly. Do you know what the message of that story is?

-- Yes.

-- Good! Great! What's the message?

-- Stay away from wolves...Right?

Stunned as I am by this unexpected interpretation, I can't help but stare down at her with my mouth agape; my eyes, unnaturally pronounced.

Yet, we are losing precious time, so I force myself to blink and, then, choose my words carefully.

-- Yes, that's...a good. Takeaway. Message. Buh...

At this point, Keith rushes her out the door and I watch as they go. But I am still standing in the hallway, talking (still trying in vain to ask, "But what's the MAIN message?") because I don't want her to leave without it.

There's nothing, however, that I can do at this point as she disappears down the steps -- my five-year-old is going to school now, determined to avoid wolves. And it just kind of sets the tone for the rest of the day.

(written March 27, 2013... / posted April 3, 2013)

Oh, yeah, and if you get a chance...

It's Monday morning, Molly's return to school after a two-week break, and the four of us are getting ready for the day.

She doesn't respond as I announce that it is time for her to leave for school, but Molly often doesn't hear people when she's pursuing an interest. So, I am not surprised when I find her leaning against the princess sofa (our antique chaise longue) as she leafs through a book.

When I see its title, I cautiously ask if she intends to take the book to school.

-- Yes, I think so. For Victoria.

Victoria is a classmate who, it appears, is somewhat fickle in designating BFF status. Something tells me that I lack some critical information about Molly's plans for the day, but she really must leave now.

-- Okay, darling. Let's pack it up, then.

-- I'm going to give it to her at recess and have her read it. Then, she'll know how to behave.

I freeze. My mind races this way and that, searching frantically for a way to dissuade her from the sweet-but-misguided plan while nevertheless lauding this bold attempt to connect with a friend.

-- Well, what if you were to ask Victoria to read the book with you? Then, Victoria could learn about her mistakes without ever being aware of your [intended act of] kindness.

She folds the book under her little arm, furrows her brows, and sets about the task of going to school -- without disclosing her intentions.

I am encouraged by the fact that Molly reaches for books (just as Devyn does) in matters of conflict.

--

How To Be A Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them (Laurie Krasny Brown/Marc Brown)

All around the Magic Tree House

While Keith and Devyn continue their nightly Harry Potter club meetings, Molly and I are at an impasse.

It isn't that I don't want to read or that we've run out of material -- we don't agree about which book it is that we should be reading.

It all started at the beginning of September when the girls and I visited a bookstore while waiting for Devyn's evening ballet class. Molly discovered The Magic Tree House: Midnight on the Moon (Mary Pope Osborne), brandished the book before me, and declared it The.Next.Book. that we just had to read.

Well, we started it that week but, by Friday, Molly had discovered a book about ninjas from the selfsame series -- and didn't look back.

(You need to know that she did not know what a ninja is (probably because I didn't know) yet she had decided that it would be far more interesting than the book that I REALLY WANT to read.)

"But," I protested, "we're on the fourth chapter! We can't just leave the story where we left it."

"Yes, we can," she giggled. "We just won't pick it up."

I was frustrated and bemused. (And, hey, did she just engage me in wordplay?) Here we were at the end of the month and we weren't moving forward. Each night since we'd read the third chapter, Molly had chosen a different book -- really, any other book -- to make her point that we would not be reading Midnight on the Moon.

"I thought you love the Magic Tree House?"

"I do love it and we can read it . . .If it's about ninjas."

I had to think about it for a while: what kind of reader was she? I reminded myself that I was dealing with the kid who -- I'm not joking -- used to refer to her alphabet books as nonfiction. Then, it occurred to me and I knew why she had lost interest in the book about the moon (a subject close to her) and I've mentioned it before: Molly loves nonfiction and she loves fiction but she's not terribly keen on the mostly fiction-some fact hybrid. The facts (obviously positioned) in the titles that I've read so far in the Magic Tree House lack sufficient detail to quench her thirst. Put another way, the books contain either too much or too little of the factual to keep her reading.

But, why ninjas? Like any four-year-old, the kid loved and still loves mystery and learning. The world of the ninja had yet to be explored at that point, but I sense that, just as she dismissed both Dinosaurs Before Dark and Midnight on the Moon, she will grow bored and we won't finish the book about ninjas.

After weighing the options, I don't think I should interrupt this emerging pattern because she gets something from her approach-retreat relationship with the series even if I don't know just what that would be. (It may be that she has yet to figure out that each book in the series will be similar in style; maybe she is optimistic).

On the other hand, I recently picked up one of the companion research guides that is available in the series which, I'm confident, would provide the missing facts that Molly wants. Then, the next time that she dismisses a Magic Tree House book, I could reach for a guide and see if that sustains her interest.

Who knows? I just want to avoid the mother-child morass of guidance vs. intrusion because I've learned my lesson with Devyn. Please note that I am patting myself on the back because I haven't pushed the issue of reading these books in sequence (though I really, really want to) because that's my thing, not theirs.

The Perils of a Good Book - 1

Distraction

(Or, Why I may have to walk Molly to university when the time comes . . . )

I bit my tongue so that she could see, in a safe way, just how dangerous such a budding skill can be. At this point, it is best reserved for the park with your mummy. 

Being and wellness

We visited the library, Molly and I, last week. I was able to see marked changes in her social development. Whereas she used to tell everyone that she was "unavailable" to play with them—even issuing directives through me in advance of social activities—she now plays easily, comfortably, with others.

She does insist that she doesn't often like other children very much but concedes that playing with some of them can be fun. She refuses to designate someone a friend unless she, among other things, clearly knows and likes the person, but she will not necessarily turn someone away from play now in the absence of her strict criteria. She may not make eye contact but we know that she can and will do so. She is also quite, er, given to leadership and has the strength of her convictions, too.

In conversation, for example, with a clerk in the children's section, this was amply demonstrated as he was just about to get rid of an empty tissue box.

"What are you going to do with that?" she asked, as she walked over to him.

"This? I was just going to recycle it."

"You shouldn't do that. You don't need to do that. You should reuse it first."

"Uh, really?" He cast a glance at me. "What should I do with it?"

"Well, you could put it on your desk right here on the corner or there," she pointed, "and put things in it."

"Yes," he conceded. "That's a good idea."

"You could also hang it on the wall for decoration."

"That's true. Wow, you have a good imagination."

"That's not imagination," she asserted, her brows furrowing to create an expression that, I swear, I first observed in the hospital nursery almost four years ago.

"I mean that you have a good imagination to come up with those ideas."

"That's not imagination," she persisted. "Those are facts."

He raised his eyebrows, looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. What could I say?

But as happy as I am that Molly is developing socially—at least, she isn't holding up her hand as she has for the past two years and stating, "I'm not available" as often—there is a discerning guardedness about her, a fearlessness as well as an enviable certitude that remains, and which makes her the little girl that I know.

While being able to watch her interact with others is always enjoyable and interesting to me and the library seems to be one of the best ways in which to do this, there is always a worry that I have when I'm there and as I'm leaving: germs. For no matter how many times I wipe hands and toys, my children usually end up with a cold within a week.

Predictably, then, Molly became ill last week with what I think is the 'flu—not gastroenteritis, but actual, flat-on-your-back influenza. I've suffered from a true, diagnosed case maybe once in my adult life and the aches, lethargy, difficulty breathing, etc. are not easily described (my new grasp of medical terminology notwithstanding). I watched Molly as she lay listlessly, eyes sunken, with a high fever and a cough that caused scream-like cries of distress each time it occurred.

Gone was the "say this! say that!" kind of, er, leadership. Gone, too, were the thirst for knowledge and firm resolutions; no furrowed brows, no "reporting".  This absence of "Mollyness" disturbed me as much as the physical symptoms and signs of the 'flu.

So, last night, after almost a week of worry and sleeplessness, I had an inkling that things were finally changing for the better: her fever was disappearing; there had been only one wakeful period during which she irrationally insisted that I fetch her a juice box (and not that of the ordinary, plastic-container-bound variety), set it on the bedside table, and then she steadfastly refused to drink it. Were her leadership tendencies returning? I wondered.

Today, however, I absolutely knew that she was on the mend when (1) she insisted on "the perfect outfit" of her choosing; (2) she decided on asked me for her favourite snack of boiled eggs and apple; (3) she requested 15 books be read to her before 10:00 a.m., and (4) I walked into the living room and found her curled up beside the library bin like this:

She's coughing, doesn't look like her old self yet, but, at least, she's starting to behave as she usually does. I have to wonder, as the world of medicine becomes less mysterious to me, to what degree is the absence of what we recognize in our children, and in our loved ones in general, part of the actual fear and ordeal of illness? But, as I close this very paragraph, a book lands on my keyboard and Molly says, "Read that!" and I realize that I'll have to muse about this later.

The Pearls of a Good Book - 1

Your kids will comfort you.

Molly's going to help me feel better today . . .

She's going to read Corduroy Goes To the Library and it will make me feel better.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education . . .

Well, except maybe for the past two weeks or so.

After school starting (for both myself and Devyn) and family emergencies, reading became too difficult this month.  Not that I haven't tried. I wanted to try. It's just that, in a tiny compartment of my brain that stores possibly-useful superstitions, I interpreted the fact that I'd misplaced my book as a sign that I should just stop trying for the time being.

Well, now school progresses smoothly (for both myself and Devyn), the family emergencies have diminished in intensity, and, alas, I have found my book: Paramedic to the Prince.

Where's my booklight . . .

And the winner is . . .

Pippi Longstocking.

Having finished Mary Poppins -- and enjoying the solitude afforded me by my weekly babysitter for Molly -- I intrepidly approached the basement stairs a few Wednesdays ago.  At the bottom lay one of dozens of bins containing children's books and I had the enjoyable yet daunting task of selecting a range of books from which Devyn (mostly) would choose our next read. My pile included:

Pippi Longstocking
Beezus and Ramona
The Prince and the Pauper
The Littles

So, as I sorted through the now dusty lot, it occurred to me that I hadn't read many of the classics in grade school. Why not? Why weren't they in the curriculum from year to year? They were available in the school libraries and we could discover them or be directed to them occasionally; but they weren't emphasized in my primary classes.

Just as importantly, why weren't the classics read to us on a regular basis? Etched into my brain somewhere is an image of myself as a grade one student sitting cross-legged in the library while listening to the outrageous behaviour of the Herdman children in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Barbara Robinson). I later revisited that book over and over again (though I sometimes mistakenly remember it as The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever, and, if you've ever read it, you'll know why). Only a couple of other periods of being read to in school -- once in grade five, another in grade ten -- really stand out.  I want my children to end up with more memories than I have in this regard.

I want to foster an appreciation of reading but I also want to give the girls a literary foundation before they enter secondary school. It doesn't have to take the fun out of reading; fun is built into the experience: Devyn speaks about and looks forward to our reading sessions before bed; the end of one book promises the beginning (and selection) of another; we spend one-on-one time together which is very special to us.

What I really like is the idea that, over the years, story after story, the girls will recognize that books tend to "speak" to one another long after they're read: associations arise, alternative interpretations occur to us, light shines on areas that we hadn't noticed before. I've found that while reading Middle Eastern/South Asian literature, The Arabian Nights (and all the variations of the title) has been of great value to me.

And doesn't narrative just seem to work its way into our lives? How much of our reading to this point in our lives is affected by our early exposure to, for example, Alice in Wonderland? The expressions in popular culture that derive from this story abound. (I fondly recall that the parallels between Homer's Odyssey and the Star Wars phenomenon, as well as other cultural events, was a favourite topic of one my late professors.) I hope that this endeavour of mine to ensure that the girls inherit many of the classics enriches their lives as adults.

In general, and not that Dora doesn't have her place, I want the girls to have more sources of cultural information in addition to what they receive via media, school, and peers.  Clearly, I can't control the messages that they receive through media and peer exposure (though I firmly believe even stemming the flow and limiting sources is possible and that it helps), but I can exchange one channel of information for another and mitigate the influences. So, this summer, but for a few isolated events, I turned off the television and introduced Devyn to another form of entertainment that went beyond the few minutes of bedtime stories that children expect; and, we often read for hours because we just can't wait to find out what happens in the next chapter . . .

So, my resolve strengthened, I realized, after carrying my little pile of books upstairs:  Devyn and I (and later, Molly and I) would read the classics of children's literature; not exclusively, not consecutively, but consistently.

So, Pippi.  One of my favourite childhood characters.  I actually remembered little of her except the lopsided braids.  How appropriate, considering the time of year, that, tomorrow, Pippi goes to school.

__

Astrid Lindgren - Official site (English)
Astrid Lindgren - Wikipedia
Pippi Longstocking

Astrid Lindgren's World

An Experiment

I've been trying to decide how to keep track of the girls' reading. This blog is not simply about their reading but I think it ought to be included:

(1) Devyn, 6, in French Immersion, needs to read in French; but, I also wish to make sure that she can read in English as well, long before it's introduced as a subject in school. Posts about her will include both French and English titles.

(2) Throughout an average day, while Devyn's at school, I often guess at how many books Molly, 2, has requested that I read; keeping track gives me that, and other, information.

In both cases, I will be able to track developing interests and gain a deeper understanding of their personalities.  I want to see exactly how much I've learnt and how much they have changed by the end of December 2010.

So, there will be posts that contain nothing but lists of books which may bore the reader to tears; but, hopefully, other posts will compensate. I won't publish the list-of-books posts to the feeds.

Molly and the Middle East

I'm lying in bed with my latest book propped up against my knees. A sickly Molly is lying beside me because her illness has been concerning despite antibiotics. I'm exhausted but she's not tired.

"Molly, you need to go to sleep. I'm doing research."

She loves to "do research" with me. So, really wanting her to go to sleep, I realize I shouldn't have said this but, oh well. You can't unring a bell.

"So, tell me about that fancy pen of yours," she says, smiling up at me. It's often easy to forget that she's only two but, at this moment, the fact that she's only two has hit me. Hard.

"It's a highlighter," I explain, a sense of dread creeping up on me because I have taught her not to write in or otherwise destroy books. Could I really end up unravelling a couple of years' worth of her learning in this regard, end up changing her relationship with books?

"How does it work? How do you draw with it?"

"Well, you don't draw with it. Sometimes, in special circumstances, in special books, for special reasons like research, you use it to mark words that you want to remember."

She's really happy to learn, I think, that she may one day be able to write in books and she asks me to show her what highlighting a word actually means.

It's not a "dry" read by any means -- a memoir of travels in a Middle Eastern country -- but I can't imagine a two-year-old enjoying it or that I may be able to edit effectively as I read. But she wants me to read aloud.

"It's about a country called Iran," I tell her. "It's part of the Middle East."

"Could we travel to there?"

I pause. I don't want to tell her about visas and the difficulties one apparently encounters while trying to secure them. She is, after all, only two.

"Yes, we can one day."

She smiles and hugs me. For a moment, I imagine the two of us travelling to the far reaches of the globe together.

"We can travel there now, tho', in our imaginations. We can pretend we're there. Books help us do that. You can go all over the world by reading books."

And I start reading to her. There's really nothing obviously inappropriate in the passages I've reached thus far and, when something questionable arises, I omit it. If she notices, she doesn't let on. She listens attentively as the narrator recounts how his faith in humanity has been restored following an act of kindness by locals.

Time has stopped for a brief period. I'm no longer thinking that it doesn't feel like 8:30 at night; I no longer feel exhausted. As the story escapes my mouth and the words fall and settle between us, there's a calm sense that she and I have started something that we'll always love to do together.

Notes / Reading with Devyn

Devyn and I spent every spare moment reading a chapter book together yesterday: The Red Ghost. It marked a change. I've always wanted to introduce her to the ghost genre of children's books and this was the best time.

I worried that she'd be frightened, even though the target audience of The Red Ghost is six to eight or nine years. I worried that she might not be able to follow along with the plot or the subplot.

The reference to a significant period in history could have been an obstacle.

I was wrong on all counts. Instead, she surprised me. In response to my, "What did ya think?" She said, "I'm disappointed."

"Why? What didn't you like?"

"Well, why did it have to come at the end?"

"What at the end?"

"The ghost."

"Good question! Do you think it should it have appeared at the beginning?"

"No, it should have come in somewhere in the middle."

I was proud of her, of this independence of thought, of this opinion of hers that wasn't at all groundless.

The suspense just hadn't worked for her; it had annoyed her.

But, anyway, as August rolls in, I'm reminded that my time with Devyn is about to change dramatically: We won't be together everyday or every weekday that she's not in school because she'll be in school full time. From this point on, it's about Devyn gradually letting go of our time together in order to embrace new and more complex social environments.

We'll have to work harder to get in those chapter books. I already know the next title to introduce to her; the earlier title, The Blue Ghost, followed by The Secret of the Painted House. Where we'll go from there, I don't yet know.

The Red Ghost
(a Stepping Stones book)
Marion Dane Bauer
Illustrated by Peter Ferguson
Random House
April 2008
Trade Paperback

Reading-less

Camping, preparing two birthday parties, having two birthday parties, in the same week left little room to read.

But I've never tried so hard -- and failed -- to read. While camping earlier in the week, I couldn't charge my Treo telephone (a problem I've had for months and which is worsening). I was fumbling in the car every chance I got, trying to make the car charger communicate through an unyielding socket. It never worked.

So, with the charge at less than 30 per cent, and once the kids were sleeping in the tent, on the last night I sat in a mesh-enclosed gazebo with the moist air heavy on my skin and in my clothes. I tried to read the last of The Hakawati but the mosquitoes had found a way in and, frankly, I felt burdened under cold clothes and under the stress of a relentless downpour.

That was my final effort because there wasn't an opportunity until this morning. On the way to Devyn's second birthday party, as promised, I read the girls a story in the car: Eloise and the Very Secret Room. OK, it wasn't from my bookshelf but this little bit of reading time made the girls so happy -- made me happy -- that it settled us all: It anchored us to a small part of our routine that was otherwise lost this week.



Ready-to-Read, Level 1 book based on the art of Hilary Knight -- Kay Thompson (Author), Ellen Weiss (Author), Tammie Lyon (Illustrator)

The numbers-driven life

(Addressing reading-time deficit)

Ashes to ashes

Dust to dust

Oil those brains

Before they rust.

I used to have my cardio time at the gym five days a week reserved for reading. But I don't have that opportunity anymore and it occurred to me today that my life has become very numbers-driven.

Each day, I need to get 1200 calories of food over five meals. Each meal must consist of 8 grams of fat, 18 grams of protein and 24 grams of carbohydrates.

I need to walk .82 miles to and .82 miles from the gym six days a week. The girls have to be at the gym by 8:45 on four of those days.

I do High Intensity Interval Training -- sprinting at 60% my target heart rate to 90% for 45 seconds, twelve times, four times weekly, in addition to one intense spinning class. There is no room for talking or reading at this point; even picking up a dropped water bottle is out of the question.

The other two mornings, I have a personal trainer take me through a customized resistance workout which consists of sets and repetitions of exercise, usually three sets of ten reps at x-weight per exercise. Obviously, I can't read here.

Before I see my trainer, I need to have warmed up for five minutes . . .

(At home, about an hour after the gym, life is child-oriented completely and, since I usually don't have help at home during the day, reading is out of the question).

This leaves a tiny interval of about three hours (again with the numbers) in the evening to . . . clean or to type furiously on my laptop.

But, the picture is pretty clear. Amidst or among all these numbers, you'd think I could squeeze in at least ONE book?

I used to stay up very late to read but, since I began training and since I bought a nifty training application to enhance the experience, I stumble over concepts such as recovery and my app sputters warnings about over-training because I'm tired.

I do love my workouts and I do miss my reading. I've had more difficult problems than this in the past and I'm willing to concede that, on a global scale, my troubles are minuscule. Still, as trivial as it seems, what's left of my mind -- what pregnancy and two years of sleep-deprivation left of my neuron count -- still needs to be fed. It's hungry. Even if it can't process language as well as it used to because the lights have gone out in my temporal and parietal lobes and compensating parts of the brain are doing little more than an adequate job. So what. It still needs to be nourished.

Look to the right of my blog, the sidebar -- It introduces two books that I'm apparently reading. A more accurate account of my activities would be: Books have been picked up from my shelf and placed (reverently) on my nightstand; an ebook has been secured for travel reading ops.

What to do? The numbers-driven life -- is it compatible with intellectual development (or, heck, even maintenance) and spiritual fulfillment? I don't know. I think it has to be.

So, I do know one thing for certain: I will read again.


*poem J. Prelutzky - A. Nonny Mouse Writes Again! (1993)

Are we there yet?

In the wee hours this morning, I realized that my interests in Middle Eastern and South Asian literature were taking me somewhere, to some place I couldn't yet see.

I don't mean this in the sense that literature is transporting me via imagination. No, that would be too easy (and, possibly, trite). My reading does take me, if you will, to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Israel / Palestine, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria . . . But this, again, is not what I mean.

It seems as if I'm in the backseat of a car with a map but I can't see the driver and the windshield is fogged up. I just know that the car is moving and that the map is, so far, useless.

I only know that I'm no longer reading just because I enjoy the shadowy forms that come to life when everything else around me seems to disappear. I'm not merely escaping. I'm not only being entertained. These facets of the experience remain but there's more. I just don't know what else there is. Yet.

And I want to know. I also want there to be some shape, some place on a map that I can circle and say, "I'm finally here!" I just don't know where that is. Yet.

Mother and Child

Though I've tried and failed to keep an accurate count and I can't remember the content of all, I've read several hundred children's books over the past three or so years. This morning, I actually had pause to think of some that I've held while cuddled up to my babies.

Some have been too didactic for my tastes while others have been set to rhymes that have made me cringe. But I think I've enjoyed most of our repertoire, especially those that illustrate some poignant, universal qualities of the parent-young child relationship and wherein the expression or acknowledgment of which usually culminates in the mother reassuringly saying, "I love you."

I'm thinking of such titles: The Runaway Bunny; Olivia; Goodnight, My Duckling . . .

Very sweet. Every mother can recognize her own relationhip in the narrative and everyone feels warm and fuzzy at this point. Even a memorably difficult parenting day depicted in Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild by Mem Fox ends with this tacit understanding of shared affection.

So, what prompted the memories of these books?

Just moments before, after joining my family in the tornadic swirl of activity that has become breakfast, I looked at my loving little 21-month-old as she reached for a piece of waffle:

"I love you, Molly." I said in a syrup-y, sing-song voice.

"I know."

Because she usually says "too" in this game, everyone laughed at the unexpected, matter-of-fact response.

But I was also stunned as well as amused. A sharp contrast to the content of those books was definitely not what I'd been set up for over the past few years, yet her first two-word response to "I love you" was really very funny.

The Big Promise of Little Lights

On cold nights or after busy days, I can't resist reading in the dark by book-light and it's especially irresistible during a thunderstorm.

Tonight, I shut off the light in the girls' room and curled up with Devyn in her bunk bed. I had my favourite book-light -- yes, I have a collection -- and we read two chapters of Enchanted: A Dream Come True.

I actually don't mind the 'princess phase' that seems to have taken hold of many five-year-old girls. I think it's cute and probably necessary and I think every girl deserves to feel like a princess. Everyday, Devyn dons her princess gown (complete with its own music) and shoes and behaves like a princess.

And I'm reminded of A Little Princess:

Her trick of pretending things was the joy of her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new "pretend" about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she was shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to be rather a secret, and here was Lavinia deriding it before nearly all the school. She felt the blood rush up into her face and tingle in her ears. She only just saved herself. If you were a princess, you did not fly into rages. Her hand dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she spoke it was in a quiet, steady voice; she held her head up, and everybody listened to her.

"Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one." (Frances H. Burnett)

Unlike Sara, Devyn doesn't have to defend herself: her peers like princesses and playing dress-up and they will just as easily change into Spider-man costumes, girls and boys alike.

(I'm not as comfortable with her collecting-dead-bugs phase as specimens for study but I'm glad she's going through it. I'm trying to overcome my squeamishness.)

But I've digressed.

All this is to say that I'm hoping that I've bestowed a gift upon my little girl. We've read every night since she arrived but tonight it was as if I had admitted her to a secret club or shown her something little-known-but-spectacular about the universe.

I hope that the promise of being able to curl up in the dark with a little light and a fascinating book stays with Devyn for the rest of her life. And, yes, I hope she continues to feel like a princess, too.

Relationship to nonfiction, etc.

Without a doubt, my older child is a scientist. With questions ranging from: "How does the water get to our house? To our bathtub? How does it get hot by the time it gets to our tub?" to "How long will it take my flashlight to melt my Freezie?", it is hard to answer each question.

I can't even answer all of her questions (and sometimes defer to Keith) and it isn't due to mere exhaustion (though that does play a role). But, when at the Discovery Centre last Family Day she could be heard loudly requesting, "Show me an orbit! Show me something in an orbit", I hastily looked for a picture of a satellite or a planet.

So, I'm almost surprised that she naturally gravitates to fiction for reading but I wonder if it isn't because I actually make fiction more available. Over the years, I've amassed a not inconsiderable number of nonfiction titles under diverse topics: how homes are built, insects and bugs, dinosaurs, manners, stranger safety, rocks and minerals, planets, etc. She loves them but when she reaches for a book, it's either one of my titles (to which she makes up her own story) or a picture book.

(Myself, I am drawn more to nonfiction. Well, not so much in the past year, actually. Anyway, I digress.)

She draws and colours but doesn't enjoy them as much as other little girls her age that I've observed. She would rather collect rocks or run around pretending to be something. She could add and subtract at the supper table before she could be taught to print.

Now, she LOVES jigsaw puzzles. The bigger, the better.

In fact, she is "very, very good," the health club child-minder told me yesterday. "Children like this often turn out to be brilliant."

Puzzles. Her son used to do 60-piece puzzles at the age of two. Now, he works for (insert LARGE COMPUTER COMPANY) in California. Devyn's appreciation of puzzles is expansive but she certainly didn't start that large and at so young an age.

When she grows up, she wants to be either a firefighter or a doctor. At the moment, she's enjoying a princess phase, so she speaks often of Ariel, Jasmine, Aurora, Annalise and Snow White and might also like to be a princess. I just hope she continues to read and to do experiments, no matter what she ends up doing or being.

Veering Off Course

I've definitely detoured from the original path of reading literature of South Asian and Middle Eastern fiction and nonfiction. I guess everyone needs a break.

I've also slowly worked on longer posts about books recently (and not so recently) read but, with my husband travelling on business so often lately, I've had precious few moments to spare.

Now that he's back, expect more from me. At least, don't give up on me.

Finally, a decision!

Again, I decided on a book of some controversy; at least, it was banned in the author's country of origin (Saudi Arabia): Wolves of the Crescent Moon by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed (translated). Though I've read only the first few chapters, it is already emotionally difficult.

When reading books of Saudi origin, I am always thirsty for a sense of the geophysical landscape (having never visited the kingdom before); but, this is generally the case for books. I positively crave ethnographic and geographic detail. As for books of Caribbean origin, I am drawn by a sense of the familiar, too. At the moment, I'm just exploring and absorbing and being filled with wonder.

Of course, I'm reading Wolves on my Treo; otherwise, I'd never have the opportunity to sit down with a book and read.

At the moment, I'm trying to decide what to do with the children and I think I've decided on the library.