Sprig Box contents, before we devoured them. Rose totally wants a subscription to this.
The Earworms app continues to be a great vehicle for Rose and Beanie’s German studies. They can now order a beer in any German restaurant with complete confidence.
We spent much of yesterday morning cataloguing the contents of a number of monthly subscription boxes for a big GeekMom series I’m doing—services like Knoshbox, Wonder Box, BabbaBox, La Bella Box, and a bunch more. BEST JOB EVER. Rilla spent all afternoon busy with art projects from the various kids’ boxes. I developed an immediate and passionate addiction to the Just Good snack mix in the photo, thanks to Sprig Box. ::shakes fist at Sprig Box:: ::kisses Sprig Box::
Of course the best part of the day, the best part of any day in which it occurs, was the reading of Miss Suzy, which I really think my be my favorite October book. Not that it’s only an October book, but that seems to be when I think of pulling it out. (The best part of my Miss Suzy post is when the author’s granddaughter leaves a comment!)
The girls finished Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (the Wii game) yesterday—a feat years in the making. “I still remember the day the package arrived,” said Rose. “Cold and rainy and miserable. And then suddenly we were in that lovely village, throwing chickens.” (Cue gales of laughter from Bean.)
I added yet more entries to the Giant List of Book Recommendations yesterday. Still a chunk of archives to go. Boy do I talk about books a lot.
Some days are Miss Suzy days. (When you’re a four-year-old girl, pretty much every day is a Miss Suzy day.) Today is gray and drizzly, a rarity for us here in sunny SoCal. Especially in October, which I’ve been recalibrated (after four years here) to think of as That Baking Hot Month When It’s All About the Santa Anas. Wildfire month. But not today. Today is chilly, blankety weather. I was tempted to call off the older kids’ morning activity, just so I wouldn’t have to venture out from under the quilt. But I didn’t. Out we went, and home we came, and the baby went down for an early nap, and Rilla and Wonderboy and I cuddled up to visit Miss Suzy.
When I open its pages, I’m swept again with the same wave of love I felt as a small girl. Oh how I adore Miss Suzy’s house. The firefly lamps, the moss rug, the acorn cups. Please can’t I live there? I feel now exactly as I did at age—I don’t know, four? five? six? When did I encounter this book? Who read it to me?
Those horrible red squirrels. I remember how sick I felt the first time I turned the page and saw that awful squirrel cracking Miss Suzy’s dear twig broom in half. How impressed I was by the grand, cobwebby dollhouse, and how well I understood Miss Suzy’s not-quite-contentment there, even after she’d tidied it up, even after she had the nice toy soldiers to mother. She could see the stars from her bed in the little house in the old oak tree, her poor little ransacked house overrun with the quarrelsome red squirrels.
Wonderboy enjoys the book well enough, but Rilla is as enchanted as ever I was. As I write this, I can hear her humming in the next room; she’s writing (and I quote) “my own version of Miss Suzy, a-cept it has a chickmunk instead of a squirrel.” I’m under orders not to peek until she’s ready.
I hope she includes the acorn cups.
4oth anniversary edition published by Purple House Press. Who the heck are Purple House Press? Oh my goodness, I just looked them up—I had no idea! They’re doing reprints of out-of-print children’s classics! They’re the folks who brought back Twig! Purple House Press, you are my new best friends!
More book recommendations here.
