now on my nightstand (and the coffee table, and stacked up on the floor, and in my car:

“Child Sense: From Birth to Age 5, How to Use the 5 Senses” was just released. It was written by Priscilla J. Dunstan (Bantam Books, 2009, $26, 303 pages). According to her press packet, Dunstan “burst onto the parenting scene” when she appeared on the Oprah show to reveal her “revolutionary discovery” that all babies make about five sounds to communicate their needs.

OK. I’ll tell you everything I know about parenting, and it all adds up to five, too:

1) Nurse if you can; don’t nurse if you can’t.
2) It’s not the terrible 2’s, it’s the terrible 10’s. Remember: They’re all different. They’re all the same, but oh my goodness, they are all different.
3) Try to find common ground with your partner, because eventually (if all goes according to plan), the kids will move out and it would be nice if you knew the person you were left living with.
4) First you’re thinking, oh my gosh! First teeth! She’s finally walking! We’re going to give her a pony for her birthday! Then before you know it, they’re screaming for money. My son, honest to Christ, just yelled at me, “We’d spend more money if you’d give us more.”

(Let us just pause for a moment to mull over that statement. “We’d spend more money if you’d give us more.” I am thinking, these are not children who deserve an allowance. Oh, no. Especially since their dad and I are the ones who got stuck cleaning out the frickin’ guinea pig cage last night.) (The class guinea pig is with us for the holidays. She is awfully cute, but the cage gets stinky.)

Where was I? Oh, yes.

5) They break your heart every day because they fill your heart every day. What with the guinea pigs and murderous African dwarf frogs and all.

And one more thing — as a parent, I firmly believe that you should take all of the credit, none of the guilt.

Next? “Sugar Blues,” by William Duffy (Warner Books, 1975, 255 pages). I have been wanting to read this book for years — Steve and others have highly recommended it to me, the lil sugar junkie. So I finally reserved a copy from the library, and it is a shredded paperback with the teensiest, tiniest print you have ever seen. I can’t read this thing. In fact, as I type this, I have to keep taking my glasses off and putting them back on, just to type and edit.

Pathetic, really.

OK. I’ll break down and buy a copy.

Next?

“Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids” was written by Kim John Payne, M.Ed. (Ballantine Books, 2009, $25, 235 pages). Really great book — I’m about halfway through, and have found several of the passages to be moving. I especially liked his comparison between the children of Asian refugee camps and the British children Payne worked with in the early ’90s. He has some insights that I appreciated about issues of control involving sleep, food and play. This one is going out on loan, along with the Dunstan book.

I’m still finishing “Water for Elephants,” it’s awfully good.

Have a great week.

— wm

Steve’s latest story, a magnum opus, no less.

This is what I heard, all three in a row, the other morning when I woke up. Isn’t that just great? So happy. Waking up happy is a beautiful thing, baby, can u dig it? And these three songs, playing one after another, with little DJ interruption, is the reason why Steve wants to jab himself in the eyeballs come 6 a.m. — cuz he just. can’t. reach. my clock radio aiiiiiiiiiii make it stop!!! she needs to set it to NPR like I do aiiiiiiii…

“love her madly” — the doors

“the backstabbers” — o’jays (My daughter, watching this video, “Look at their hair! They wore it so… big.” me, getting all misty, “yeah, all the guys wore their hair like that,” (thinking of the black guys I went to grade school and high school with) “it looked great.” Wacky Girl, “But the girls wore it big, too!” me: “Honey, you should have seen Grandma’s hair, it was big.”)

“grazin in the grass is a gas baby can you dig it” — the friends of distinction

“And it’s real, so real, so real, so real, so real, so real
Can you dig it
Whooo-oooh”

“Words /
as slippery as smooth grapes, /
words exploding in the light /
like dormant seeds waiting /
in the vaults of vocabulary, /
alive again, and giving life: /
once again the heart distills them.”

— Pablo Neruda, poet and diplomat (1904-1973)

Here’s what NOT to do when you’re broke: “payday loans.” (Which are now illegal in Oregon and 14 other states, thank God.) And avoid the damn credit cards, if possible. Get a roommate, move in with friends, reduce expenses, stop eating out, walk and don’t drive, take the bus and don’t pay for parking, balance the checkbook daily, don’t rack up “courtesy fees,” switch to a credit union, on and on. Yes, we know all this. Pay with cash when possible, put your money in little envelopes marked “groceries,” “leisure,” “emergency,” turn down the thermostat, donate money, supplies and volunteer when you can… But what about if you’re already over the edge? Hang on. You just have to hang on. Try to have hope when it feels like there is none.

Here’s what else you can do: Watch this show. It’s a Frontline special called “The Card Game,” all about the credit card fiasco our nation is diving into headfirst. We caught the end of it last night, it’s good. (more…)

Christmas movie season has started for us. We’ve already watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Ref.” Tonight we’re watching “A Christmas Story” and I also bought a copy of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” for Steve. Because it was me and my cousin T’s favorite and now he is gone and I have to have something to make me not so lonely for him, once the holidays kick into full manic overdrive.

I realize that that will not happen until mid-morning this Friday, but I am getting prepared.

I am missing my cousin, and my grandma. He was the nicest person in our family so of course he died young. That is the way shit operates I guess. Same for his dad, same for my dad, I coulda called it but I didn’t. And my grandma was the wildest so of course I don’t know who the hell to call now that she’s gone. I go to call her once or twice a day, only she is not there. Then I do not want to pick up the phone at all when it rings because, ring, ring, hello? It’s not going to be her.

“Nancy. It’s her Grandma. Call her.”

That is the message she would leave on my machine, see?

Sigh.

Do the holidays affect you weird or what?

Also, what is your favorite holiday book and/or movie?

Please advise.

xo

Wacky Mommy
The Christmas Elf