Over at GeekMom today, I’m thinking about a small child’s most beloved word:
Why is a chameleon-word that shapeshifts into all the questions put together. Who, how, when, what, where, will. Why is the wonder-word. It collects the flurry of bewildering input that swirls around a small child like leaves in a tornado—and in a single syllable, it tames the wind. It puts form to the formless: When other words are leaping all over the place with their jittery meanings (leaves fall in the fall but snow doesn’t winter in the winter), why stays put. Why is reliable. When grownups all around you are failing to comprehend the very clear statement you’re making about eating opiemeal in the hoffabul, why is a word they understand. Sometimes it’s the only word they seem to understand, so you use it in place of all the other words they can’t quite grasp…
GeekMom Counterpoint: Why I Love Why.
I have a new corner over at GeekMom: I’ll be hosting live interviews with other authors and artists via Google Hangout. Eep! Recorded live! Sometimes books fall on your head in the middle of the interview! (True story.)
Here’s Episode One: an interview with the awesome Quinn Cummings about her new book, Pet Sounds (and a whole lot of other stuff). Bonus: lightning round questions contributed by my children.
I hope you’ll click over to take a look. I had the best time chatting with Quinn.
Over at GeekMom.
Season 3, Episode 5 (U.S. reckoning) over at GeekMom.
…is up at GeekMom. Lots to talk about this week.
Season 3, Episode 3, over at GeekMom now.
Over at GeekMom. Care to join us? I have many theories. ABOUT EVERYTHING.
I’m hosting Downton Abbey open threads over at GeekMom again this year.
Below stairs, tension is introduced in the form of one gangly Alfred, the nephew of O’Brien, whose work history causes Carson to grow extra grizzles in his eyebrows on the spot. O’Brien, undeterred, smoothly manipulates Lady Cora into convincing a distracted Lord Grantham to hire the lad. (Later, upon hearing a new footman has been installed, Lord Grantham will react with the same bewilderment I felt upon seeing Matthew and Mary at the altar.) Alfred, as is required of all new Downton Abbey employees, gets off to a dodgy start: “You’re too tall for a footman,” declares Carson, and you can almost hear the Downton mortar crumbling at the indignity of a former hotel waiter (gasp) serving the family at dinner. (Relax, beautiful house; we’re soon to learn that Alfred is the least of your worries.)
Come join us!
For now. I keep getting requests to take a look at more boxes. I find it very hard to refuse a box of mysterious I-don’t-know-what’s-inside.
Anyway, this time around: boxes full of snacks and/or bath-and-body samples.
