My kids love to listen to books. They love it when I read aloud (which is still a major part of our bedtime routine, even though they are now nearly seven and nine). They also love recorded books from Audible. Even though books from Audible are pricey, we have a membership and helps keep the price down. But even if it wasn’t possible to get them at a reasonsable price, I would still think they were a bargain. We’ve listened to many wonderful books while driving in the car. And since we live “out in the boondocks” as I like to say, we spend a lot of time in the car.

The books my kids love are ones they will listen to over and over and over again. Since we’ve gotten such joy from recorded books, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite titles with you. If you can’t afford a aubscription from Audible, check out your local library. They will have a selection you can borrow.

 

Clementine

Written by Sarah Pennypacker

Narrated by Jessica Almasy

This series–about a percoious red headed 3rd grader–is a hit with both my own percoious red-head and with her younger brother. And with me as well! The characters are warm and delightful, the conflict and themes are both age appropriate and heart-felt. The fantastic narration highlights the books’ humor as well as their more emotional moments.

 

Artemis Fowl

Written by Eoin Colfer

Narrated by Nathaniel Parker

An action/adventure series about a boy criminal-mastermind–the titular Artemis Fowl–who gets more than he bargained for when he decides to capture and hold for ransom one of the fairy folk. Fast-paced, smart and an all-around hoot-n-half, the plot and characters of Artemis Fowl will entertain and delight even the most curmudgeonly listener. Frankly, I don’t know why no ones making movies of these! (Or writing books for adults this good, for that matter.)

 

Matilda

Written by Roald Dahl

Narrated by Kate Winslet

I think anything writtne by Dahl sells itself. (And–holy guacamole!–narrated by Kate Winslet? How did I not notice that before now? Probably because the story is so engaging.) But if you need more proof, we’ve listened to this one approximately nineteen times. And I may be low-balling that number. The kids simply love it. ‘Nough said.

 

The Water Horse

Written by Dick King-Smith

Narrated by Nathanial Parker

This is one those rare books that is slow-paced, charming and engaging. It will interest readers, without ever overwhelming them. My kids sometimes get to wrapped up in stories, but this one keeps them listening without every being too scary or overstimulating. It’s just a delightful, lovely tale.

 

When You Reach Me

Written by Rebecca Stead

Narrated by Cynthia Holloway

Just a friggin’ fantastic book. It’s for a slightly older audience than the others (though mostly in plot complexity, not content). The year I first listened to it, I decided it was the book I’d read that year. It’s mysterious and atmospheric and complex and thought-provoking. I dare you not to love this book. I dare you. In fact, if you listen to it and *don’t* love it, I’ll refund your fifteen bucks. Oh, and it’s a Newberry award winner. Those people know what they’re talking about.

 

Holes

By Louis Sachar

Narrated by Kerry Beyer

Thematically probably more complex than a lot of the others, this book deals with faith, friendship, race relations, and smelly shoes. It’s brilliant. Funny. Tragic. Romantic. Everything you could possibly want. And it’s another Newberry winner. I told you they know what they’re doing over there.

 

In case you’re wondering, we’ve listened to every one of these books at least three times. We’ve listened to The Water Horse so often I once lied to my kids and told them it had vanished off my iPhone just so I could take a break.

So, yeah, recorded books seem expensive. But if I can get  four or five listenings out of it, it’s worth it. That’s roughly $2.50 for four or more hours of entertainment for the whole family.

Do you like recorded books? If you haven’t tried them, try one of the titles on my list. You won’t be disappointed.

 

Emily McKay lives and writing in the Texas Hill Country with her kids, hubby, and her chickens.

 

 

No writing necessary

Ever since Survivor debuted 14 years ago, reality TV has forever changed our viewing options. Yes, there have always been some “reality” TV out there, like the ones on HGTV and a few on TLC like A Baby Story, but the truth is, there are entire networks now where that’s all they show. I’ll admit to watching some of them. I’m a fan of The Biggest Loser, though admittedly I have stopped watching a handful of seasons because they’ve been more drama than motivation. If I don’t have someone to root for, then I’m not interested.

I enjoyed the first few seasons of Survivor, but then it got repetitive and annoying. So for the most part, I don’t watch them. I find the incessant yelling and conflict grating and frankly, it tends to give me anxiety. Kinda like that movie, The Break-Up that was out a few years, I can’t even watch the previews of that one without feeling all the emotions that I felt in the movie.

I’ve never watched The Bachelor because I find the whole “make-out fest” a little icky. And it seems like all the commercials show the girls sobbing about their broken hearts. I’ve never seen Honey Boo-Boo or Duck Dynasty, but I caught an episode of Naked & Afraid once and it was odd. It’s not that I don’t see the entertainment value, I get it, sorta, but I’d just much rather watch a show with an actual story, dialogue, and likable characters.

In any case I popped over to BuzzFeed because you know they have quizzes and lists on everything and here’s what I found.

Top 10 Worst Reality Shows

What Reality Show Would You Be On? (quiz)

By the way, I got Top Chef.

So how about you, are you a fan of reality TV? Do you watch some, but not all or are you a total junkie? 

What’s Keeping You Busy?

My question of the day is: What’s keeping you busy?

Like most weeks, my calendar is pretty full. But, it’s mostly full of blessings.

Sure, there’s some stuff I’d like to erase from my “To Do” list, a few things I’m not looking forward to dealing with, but I strive really hard to remind myself that those not-so-fun To Do’s will only serve to make the really fun things that much better.

So, I thought it would be fun to take a look at our calendars and share a little about what we find filling them up.

With mine, you’ll find that I tend to spend a lot of time with my family,

my girlfriends,

socializing with friends,

and exercising (this one needs to get on my calendar more often).

There’s also rarely a week that goes by when I’m not attending some type of volunteer event or meeting.

But I also try to remember, amidst the hustle and bustle of my life, take care of myself.

Time to regroup, listen to my thoughts, enjoy a good book.

Which is why I try to add a little quiet or alone time to my calendar.

Some weeks I’m better at this than others.

And at the end of the day, when I’m snuggling under my blankets in bed, after racing along checking things off my To Do list, I really hope I don’t forget this mantra:

So, what’s filling up your calendar this week? Something fun you wanna share? Something important you’d like us to think good thoughts about for you?

I hope you have time to stop by and share!

WT# Is Wrong With You?

I peruse several Facebook Fan Pages for various television shows, authors, movies, and such that I enjoy. I like reading articles and comments, and yes, sometimes spoilers. Last week, I absently clicked on a link for some spoilers for the second season of a television series…and was gob-smocked to discover these spoilers, instead of being of the vague “a beloved character dies,” “a couple faces a threat,” or “a mysterious newcomer promises answers” variety were excruciatingly specific. But that’s not all they were, either. They were the entire plotline of the second installment in the story, including all the major plot points and surprises.

Given that I already knew all this, the revelations didn’t bug me, but I found myself cringing anyway. Since I’m somewhat of a spoiler aficionado, I know what spoilers usually are, and this wasn’t it. So I found myself feeling REALLY BAD for the people who clicked on that link expecting regular vague spoilers, but who instead had the entire second season of a popular show ruined for them. True, true… they clicked on the link so it was their choice. But I couldn’t help but think a lot of people who were clicking on that link weren’t expecting to read what they did.

So…I commented. Now, I’m not a confrontational person. At all. I’ll go out of my way to avoid just about any confrontation of any type. I’m much more of a peace making type of person. And that’s what I was trying to do. I commented something to the effect of “wow, careful there! those are a lot more than spoilers!”

And the slamming began.

All sorts of people started jumping on me, as well as the few others like me who dared to mention that these spoilers were a little more specific than regular spoilers. People pointed out the thread said Spoilers (true), so what did we expect? But they didn’t stop there. It was a regular pile: Only an idiot clicks on Spoilers if they don’t want to see spoilers. Quit crying over something you did yourself. What kind of stupid person are you? Could you be any more of an idiot? What part of the word SPOILER did you not understand? And, my favorite: WTF is wrong with you?

And I just sat there reading all this, going…wow. At first I responded, trying to explain WHY I commented, but that only made the slamming worse. Random people started posting pictures with pithy little sayings on them, one after the other. Labels were tossed about, stupid, moron, and idiot among the most common. So…I disconnected from the thread and went on my merry way. I wasn’t upset personally… but on more of a macro level I found myself scratching my head, wondering what possessed people to be so ugly? Why would you talk that way to anyone—someone you know, but maybe even especially to someone about whom you know nothing? A complete absolute stranger (who could be the nicest person in the world, or could be unbelievably fragile, or in the middle of a personal tragedy, or, or, or…you just don’t know.)

A few days later there was another Facebook discussion on my local community’s page about a certain parental behavior, something some are comfortable doing, but others aren’t. And again the judgment started to fly, with those who had opted against something referring to those who opted in favor as stupid, careless, dumb, idiots, and criminal.

And again…I found myself going wow.

It’s not just on Facebook, either, although Facebook represents a nice tidy microcosm of society. It’s everywhere. The judging. The slamming. The hate-speak. There’s the big stuff like politics and religion, abortion and gay marriage, gun control and the death penalty, but the ridicule doesn’t stop there. People get shamed and shredded for whether they use plastic or paper, which light bulbs they buy, if they believe in global warming, what time they choose to put their kids to bed, if they choose to shop on Thanksgiving or…whether they choose to read spoilers.

I don’t know. I think back ten, twenty, twenty-five years ago, and it feels like we’re less tolerant than we use to be. It feels like we’re less okay with people thinking and behaving differently than us. We say we are, but then we turn around and ridicule/blast/shame them for doing so, then defend ourselves by saying hey, it’s your right to say/do what you want, but it’s my right to say/do what I think about it. And…well, yeah. It’s hard to argue with that basic logic, but it also feels like something’s getting lost there. Passing judgment/ridiculing does not equal accepting differences—and being cool with each other anyway. (And yes, as I say that, I find myself wondering if I’m being a little hypocritical…if calling out those who pass judgment is, in its own way, passing judgment…)

All I know is I find myself shaking my head, wondering…when did we quit caring about other people? Where did our basic compassion go? And civility. When…did we get so mean? We give all this lip-service to bullying, telling our kids how horrible it is and running news stories about it, but it seems to me that we, the adults, are as guilty as, if not more so, of bullying as our children.

Hmmm. Could it be our kids are learning more from us than we realize?

What Happened to Halloween?

When did Halloween become such a big holiday? It must have happened sometime after I graduated from college and sometime before Princess Galen was born. A couple years ago I realized nearby neighborhoods were just as decked out for Halloween as Christmas.

Cemeteries pop up in yards, pirates dangle by nooses from trees, and zombies stand by driveways. It’s a lot to explain to a little kid. I don’t even know where to begin.

The year before my daughter was born I made the mistake of going to a Halloween party. I wore a twirly dress and fairy wings. My husband put on his cowboy hat and boots. We looked like we’d made an effort. The rest of the people at the party looked like they had been hired by a haunted house. I felt so lame. I also felt overdressed. The women wore nothing short of clothing appropriate for a prostitute.

When did Halloween become about wearing sexy clothes? And why have kids’ characters been sexualized? I think that creeps me out the most.

Cheer Bear from the Care Bears

Even Sesame Street isn’t immune.

Big Bird

Where did we go wrong? When did Halloween become more about sex and less about games

and cute kids’ costumes?

What I’d tell my 15 year old self….

Guess what? Turns out, I’m an athlete!

That’s what I would tell the teenage version of myself. Chances are, she’d laugh her ass off. But only if she could do it without putting down her book. The teenage me would never imagine she could be good at exercise

But, hang on a minute, because there’s someone else I’d like to say that too also. I’d say it to the nine year old me also. Because that’s when I got that idea. The idea that I wasn’t an athlete.

I remember the moment clearly. I was about nine, in maybe the third grade. We were playing something in P.E. Softball, I think, but it might have been kickball. It was one of those bases-loaded moments. I was in the hot seat. I buggered it. I humiliated myself (in my own eyes) and the team lost. I went home in tears. And that’s when it happened. My mom, trying to comfort me, said, “It’s okay, honey, Beierles just aren’t good at sports. We just aren’t very coordinated.” (Beierle is my maiden name.)

I internalized that phrase, “Beierles aren’t good at sports.” it became part of my identity. Not good at sports. Not an athlete. Not coordinated.

It was okay. I was smart. I loved reading. (And that’s a subject of another post, probably one I already wrote.) I didn’t mind not being good at sports. I mean, I minded every day in P.E. when I was picked last. When I always fumbled the ball. When I stood in the wrong spot on the volleyball court and got hit in the face with the ball. I totally cried that time, because, damn, that hurt. But I was okay with my identity of not being an athlete.

For most of my life–as that teenagers and as an adult–I really struggled with exercise. I know I need exercise to be healthy. I wanted to find something I could force myself to do, but I just never found it.

Until yoga. Which I love. But the Iyengar yoga I do is slow and methodical. I’m good at it, but it’s yoga. It’s not exactly the stuff of athletes.

And then, a year ago, my son said he wanted to take Tae Kwon Do. So I found a place to take him. And then my daughter started going. And I did.

It made sense. I write action, so it’s technically research. I could get help choreographing fight scenes. Plus, it turns out, it’s just fun. No. Really.

Yeah. That’s me saying that. It’s exercise and it’s fun. I look forward to it. And now here’s the really weird thing: I’m good at it. There are two other women in my class who are at the same level as me. I don’t carry them, but they don’t carry me either. We are equals. One of them jogs every morning. One of them was a star basketball player in high school. And I’m their equal.

That’s amazing to me!

And here’s the thing that I never understood about what it means to be athletic: I didn’t know that even lazy, uncoordinated people could be athletes.

Oh, any number of P.E. teachers and coaches said, “Well, you just need to practice. You’ll get better at softball/kickball/tennis/basketball/volleyball/etc.”

I had absolutely no faith that I would get better. I was a naturally uncoordinated person. How could practice help that? I couldn’t imagine that any amount of practice would make me not a clumsy lunk. I never understood that practice would build muscles. That having muscles would mean I’d have better control over my limbs. That using my muscles regularly would help me develop muscle memory. That I would totally feel like an athlete!

Yeah, I’m still uncoordinated. Yeah, I still cringe at the thought of playing a team sport. Yeah, I’d still probably be the last one picked to play kickball. And, yeah, I’d probably still get the volley ball to the face. But guess what? Now, I could totally drop kick the guy who did it. (Not that I would do that. That would be rude.)

(By the way, I had all kinds of cool pictures of my getting my red belt, but now I can’t find them. I don’t think I understand how my phone works with the new update. So instead, I included pictures of Master Um, my instructor, with his far more impressive student, WIllie Nelson!)

Mommy chuckles

So I just finished and turned in a book and I’m fried… I always enjoy a good laugh, especially ones about being a parent. Which one(s) of these do you relate to?

I do this ALL the time!

This is so me!

My favorite is when they ask – “what are you eating, I smell chocolate.”

Father-Daughter Bonding

I could write a long, mushy blog post about how fabulously, gloriously blessed I am to have my amazing parents.

Mom, Dad and me in Barcelona

A recent family pic for our church

I can honestly say that their strength, support and understanding has guided me through many a dire situation. But since my parents are so amazing, they each deserve their own blog post. Today’s is dedicated to my dad.

It’s often said that a daughter’s relationship with her father is special. A father is someone a daughter should be able to rely upon— in good times and bad. A man she knows is there for her no matter what. A man she can look up to. A man who serves as a role model for her own partner.

I’m not rose-colored glasses enough to believe that this is always true. Which leads me to give thanks every day for the man I call Dad. Or Pop. Or Papi. Depending on my mood, the moment, or the language I’m speaking.

So today, I’d simply like to post an homage of pics representing the numerous father daughter bonding moments my dad and I have shared in recent years. A testament to the fun-loving, sometimes embarrassment-inducing, inappropriate comment-making absolute best dad a girl could ask for.

My dad’s in tuned with his cultural side, here we are:

Wearing our tuxedos, snapping a selfie as we usher a Broadway show at our main performing arts center

Supporting the Gainesville Latino Film Festival

Salsa dancing at a local event

At the Marc Anthony concert together

We’re huge Gator fans! Dad may not have attended UF, but says his money did as both my sister and I are alums. ☺

Enjoying Gator baseball

Cheering on our 2007 National Champion basketball team

Tailgating at last week’s Gator football game

Papi has thrown his support behind my endeavors as well as my daughters’

Celebrating my MFA graduation at Seton Hill University

Proudly wearing his “I Always Get Consent” shirt to raise awareness in the fight against sexual violence on college campuses– an organization one of my daughters co-created at her undergraduate university

We’re a family of characters who never miss an opportunity to play dress up whether it’s for an Oscar party, World Cup soccer

a Halloween zombie party

Or being biker babes riding Dad’s moped, taking a selfie at a loooooong stop light

If you know my dad, you know he’s crazy about karaoke. My dad is a regular Frank Sinatra, Willy Nelson, David Allan Coe and Neil Diamond all rolled into one. So, no blog about my papi would be complete without a pic of him singing karaoke:

And finally, I’m sharing this last pic just cuz I love it. Here’s my dad and me, relaxing at Disney’s Animal Kingdom during a family reunion. My head on his shoulder, comfortable and safe with my dad at my side.

Te quiero, papi! XOXO

It’s A Scary World

So I live in North Texas…you know, near Dallas and Patient Zero. That hospital you’ve been hearing about? Yeah. Both my kids were born there. I personally have spent over a month there as a patient. My ob-gyn is there. My fertility specialist. I get my mammograms there. I’ve walked the halls, eaten meals, made friends. Needless to say, this is all hitting way close to home.

Last week I’m walking my daughter, a 5^th grader, home from school, and she and one of her besties are excitedly telling me they talked about it at recess and figured it out: if the Ebola starts spreading, we all need to get to some remote island. We’ll be safe there…well, as long as we can figure out how to purify water and get food. Bodily fluids with Ebola can’t survive across water…can they? The salt water would kill them…right?

I smile. I engage with the girls. I discuss the merits of their plan, while at the same time working to assure them that we don’t need to worry about that (even as, in the back of my mind, the little fear bug gnaws away.) And then I find myself opening the front door and walking into the cool confines of our house, much like the afternoon last year when I learned about the active-shooter drill at the elementary school, so, so SAD that these little kids, these CHILDREN, have to worry about stuff like gunmen in their schools and Ebola.

Flash-forward to today, and I’m messaging with a writer friend and reflecting about all the Huge Stuff kids today have to deal with—Ebola! ISIS! Beheadings on YouTube! Mass Shootings at school and movie theaters and just about everywhere else! Cyber Bullying! Sexual Predators! Online Sexual Predators, and More, More, Always More!—and she wisely says, “They will learn to deal with it. It’s our job to raise responsible adults not dependent children, as hard as it is on us parents (and grandparents.) Our job is not to keep them away from scary things, but to teach them to deal with and overcome fears.”

And I just kinda sat there going…wow. You’re right. You are absolutely right. That is our job as parents. To teach our kids. To prepare our kids. To ready them for the day that they walk through the world as adults. Sometimes this involves protecting them. Sometimes this involves taking a deep breath while bumps and bruises happen, understanding that they are an inevitable part of growing up.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought about swimming—and drowning. When we have kids, we naturally worry about them falling into water. Given this, one of two courses are available to us: we can keep them away from water, which is really, really great, because if you’re not around water, you can’t drown…until the day something unexpected happens and are you are around water and you aren’t prepared. Or…we can teach them to swim.

So I started thinking…and talking to some friends. How do we do it? How do we teach our kids to function in this scary world? How do we prepare them for the world they are going to live in?

How do we teach them to swim?

And while it may seem like a big, overwhelming responsibility, I realized there really are some salient approaches that make a big difference.

• Be honest. Tell them the truth. Answer their questions. Don’t create fairy tales that some day will crash around them. If they ask what Ebola is, tell them. Is they ask about ISIS, tell them. BUT…and this is huge…operate on a need to know basis. For my 6yo, telling him that Ebola is a bad sickness and ISIS is a group of bad guys in another part of the world is enough. That satisfies his 6yo curiosity. He doesn’t need to know more than that. My 10yo, however…she needs deeper answers. And I can pace myself by feeding bits of information, and letting her questions guide me. She’s functioning in this world. She’s around televisions and newspapers, radios, and the biggest information source of all: the Internet. So she has access to information as it is. I need to make sure she feels comfortable that when she asks me questions, I’m real with her, because if I’m not, she’ll quit asking. Which brings me to,
• The media. All of it. TV, radio, print, Internet… Dial it back. Minimize their exposure. Maybe we want to hear what’s being said, but that doesn’t mean we need to expose young impressionable minds to all the spin. And hysteria. And hype. Sadly, the 24-hour (entertainment) news cycle is about ratings (i.e., making money) and not much else. If kids aren’t hearing this stuff, then a whole lot of their fears can be mitigated before they ever even begin.
• Just like with water and swimming, teaching plays a huge role in preparing kids to live in the world that is awaiting them. Teach them about responsible Internet behavior. Teach them about the dangers of posting racy selfies. Teach them about sociopaths who pose as children on social networks. Teach them about the dangers of giving out personal information. Teach them about Ebola and how it’s spread, what bodily fluids are, and what kinds of safety protocols we can all take. Sure, what you teach a 5yo will be very different than a 10 or 15yo, but we can’t pretend bad things don’t happen, because that’s like letting your child who doesn’t know how to swim go play at the lake without a life-jacket, and simply telling him to stay on shore.
• Acknowledge fear, but teach them skills to deal with their fears–fear is an important feeling that tells us to beware, be vigilant, but not be paralyzed. If kids are taught never to fear anything, they are too naive to function in the real world. And finally…
• Create a consistent, peaceful, loving environment for your kids at home. Give them a safety net, a place where they know they are safe and loved, where they can exhale and trust and retreat, despite whatever ugliness they may encounter in the outside world. Listen to them. Hug them. LOVE them.

Interestingly, when I asked family and friends what their ONE piece of advice would be for parents raising kids in a scary world…a consistent, loving, peaceful environment at home was the number one response given, and the response given by every single young adult and teen. I found that pretty fascinating, and pretty telling. Love. It’s so darn important, the very foundation of our children’s lives. Maybe we can’t eradicate Ebola or stop ISIS, but we can teach, and prepare, and wrap our kids in love…and maybe just maybe, the scary world won’t feel quite so scary.

 

Identity and Motherhood

My daughter is an amazing, unique person. I love her style. I love the way she runs around with carefree abandon. Barefoot. In dresses. In Werewolf costumes. I love her creativity. I wonder what she’ll be. Because there is so much potential contained in her beautiful little self. She is truly fearfully and wonderfully made.

I want her to have dreams, and I want to see them come true. I want them to be as far reaching as the stars. Big, big dreams.

I was pondering this the other day and realizing that I was once someone’s little girl. And my mom had all those same thoughts for me. I know she does, because she tells me.

That got me thinking. Thinking about identity. Identity once you’ve become a mother.

I love being a mother. I love my children. I feel the need to put that out there even now for fear claiming I love anything else might undermine that. Because…so often anything else in our lives is treated like it does undermine that love. Like any other aspiration we might have somehow robs from what has now become the primary part of our identity.

Very often when I tell people I’m a writer, the first comment is: That’s so wonderful! You get to be home with your kids.

I find that interesting. As though the only truly great thing about my accomplishments is how I’ve somehow managed to find a way to get paid to make myself available to do the one thing I really should want to do: be home with my kids.

But that perspective underserves the way our family works. I am not ‘home with my kids.’ I work full time at an office in my home. There are many challenges that go with that. My husband is the ‘stay at home’ (HAHAHAHA) parent. Who puts in so many miles on our car getting them where they need to go, who bears the burden of housework and grocery shopping and keeping us all functional.

Yes indeed, I am flexible in schedule, and that’s a wonderful thing. But…I have a job. A job that requires me to put in full time hours and sometimes LOCK my office door and build a security fence around my time.

My husband is a hard working stay at home parent. He spends a lot of time working on his music. He’s good at it. It makes him happy. It’s part of who he is. Because there’s more to him than ‘dad.’

Though, he’s never asked to justify these things. Often, he’s in that unenviable position of justifying his position as full time caregiver to the kids. People always want to know what ‘else’ he does. (And that’s a whole problem too.)

I find people often don’t want to know what ‘else’ moms do. Too often we’re only seen as one thing. Too often we see ourself as only one thing. 

I don’t like it when people justify that I use my time for anything BUT my children. “It’s great because you’re home with your kids.”

I think it’s great because I love what I do. Because it makes me happy. Because me being happy makes me a better wife and a better mom. 

Because I am living out my dreams. Because I’ve kept that part of myself that ran barefoot in dresses and let her hair fly in the wind, just like my daughter.

I don’t want her to lose that when she has children, if she has children. Because I prize all of who she is.

I should prize those same things in myself.

We all should.