This Ain’t One of My More Coherent Entries

September 13, 2005 @ 3:35 pm | Filed under: Family Adventures

August was not a month for blogging; not for me, at least. And here we are well into September, and I’m looking around feeling dazed, wondering how our summer slipped by without a chronicle. I suppose we were too busy doing to do much reflecting. Or perhaps it is simply that sunscreen-slick hands can’t stay on the keyboard.

But this past week seems to have tipped us into fall. The pool is closed; the wooded trails around our neighborhood are cool and inviting; the kids are wanting to paint and ride bikes, things they haven’t bothered about since spring. And I’m wanting slow down and capture the moments that whisked past me these past few months.

Wonderboy had his surgery in early August and has made a good recovery. At last he can sit again, though he still seems uncomfortable in the car if the ride is more than a few minutes. He continues to explode with new signs: I lost count at fifty, and he adds new ones every day. When Scott was away this past weekend, the boy stalked the house signing “Want Daddy” until I thought his thumb was going to bore a hole in his forehead. I have to keep his thumbnail cut short or else he scratches himself something awful.

Beanie has announced that she hates her curly hair. She has the most gorgeous head of golden sausage-curls, really unbelievable hair of the sort that makes people happy just to see it. I expected it would torment her as a teenager but I certainly never imagined her hair woes would begin at age four. “I don’t WANT to be a curly girl!” she wails. This is the only gloomy note in her sun-drenched disposition. When she is not pining for straight hair, she bounces around singing, constantly singing. Sometimes the songs are her own made-up ramblings, surprisingly lyrical. Other times she amuses me with the Beatles or folk songs.

The other day she was stuck in a loop of “The Old Gray Mare.” After about forty repetitions, she turned to me and said, “What’s ain’t?”

I explained. She experimented with the synonym: “The old gray mare just isn’t what she used to be, isn’t what she used to be…nope, ain’t sounds better.”

Ain’t that the truth.

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  1. Julie says:

    Oh how I’ve missed your blog. :) Glad you’re back at it.

    My red heads have similar comments about their glorious locks. They didn’t like always being singled out due to hair. We used to counter such effusive comments (”Oh what gorgeous red hair”) with “And she has beautiful inner qualities too!” That usually stopped the flow.

    Julie

  2. anne says:

    Welcome back…your blog is a wonderful one to read.
    We always want different hair than waht we have, don’t we???? I have totally straight hair and always wanted curly…..

  3. kimmy says:

    i’ve got the same story on my blog. summer is not a time for blogging when there is lazing and exploring and swimming and other summertime follies to be done…

    autumn, however, seems to beg introspection, wistfulness and doleful reminiscence. autumn also happens to be my most productive and creative season….so be on the look out :)
    welcome back. i enjoy your bonny glen.

    Kimmy

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My Bonny Clan


Jane, 13 yrs old
Rose, 10 yrs
Beanie, 7 yrs
Wonderboy, 4 yrs
Rilla, 2 yrs
baby eagerly expected Jan. 2

and Scott, the love of my life




Book Log 08


In progress:


Damosel: In Which the Lady of the Lake Renders a Frank and Often Startling Account of her Wondrous Life and Times
by Stephanie Spinner

Lots of picture books
for the Cybils
(See my mini-reviews at Twitter)

Sense and Sensibility
by Jane Austen
(reading this aloud to Jane)



Recently enjoyed:


Bend-the-Rules Sewing
by Amy Karol

Understood Betsy
by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
(read-aloud to Beanie)

The King's Fifth
by Scott O'Dell
(middle-grade novel about a young Spanish cartographer's travels with Coronado in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola)

A Murder for Her Majesty
by Beth Hilgartner
(I posted about it here)


haystackcover

Haystack Full of Needles
by Alice Gunther
(Here's my post about it)

The Highwaymen
by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman

Number the Stars
by Lois Lowry

Swallows and Amazons
by Arthur Ransom

A Street in Marrakesh
by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

Knight's Castle
by Edward Eager (to Beanie)

(a sequel to Half Magic)



The Creative Family>
by Amanda Soule

The Losers (Vol.1): Ante Up
by Andy Diggle and Jock

Green Arrow: Year One
by Andy Diggle and Jock

Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places
by John R. Stilgoe
(here's a post about it)

Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
by Madeleine L'Engle

Dogger
by Shirley Hughes

As for the rest:

They're at GoodReads


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Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars?

They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.


My Big List of Booklists


Favorite Fictional Families


The Quiet Joy


Scary Junkyard Dogs





Books We Love

(a work in progress)

Picture Books


The Story of Ping
by Marjorie Flack

My First Mother Goose
illustrated by Rosemary Wells

Blue Hat, Green Hat
by Sandra Boynton

The Maggie B by Irene Haas

James in the House of Aunt Prudence by Timothy Bush


Fiction


Just So Stories
by Rudyard Kipling

The Tintin books
by Herge

Showcase Presents
a line of comic books
published by DC Comics
(I posted about them here)

Whinny of the Wild Horses
by Amy Laundrie

The Penderwicks
by Jeanne Birdsall

My Father's Dragon series
by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Understood Betsy
by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

The Wheel on the School
by Miendert Dejong

The Chronicles of Narnia
by C. S. Lewis

By the Great Horn Spoon
by Sid Fleischman

The Swallows & Amazon books
by Arthur Ransome


Many more to come, when I have time!




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