Some weekend! The big news around here is that Peanut lost her first tooth on Saturday. Yup! She’s officially a big kid. She was delighted with her haul from the Tooth Fairy (four quarters! so shiny!) and I now have a tooth in my jewelry box. (Mom readers: what does one do with baby teeth? Saving them seems weird.) The other big news was that Peanut sang a solo – How Far I’ll Go, from Moana – at the camp talent show on Friday. I worked from home and Steve and I both took the afternoon off to be there. I was so proud! Last year she hid in the back row as her group sang “This Land is Your Land” and this year she tore out in front of the audience, grabbed the mic and went to town. What a difference a year makes, huh?
The rest of the weekend was fairly low-key, which was both bad and good. Bad because I had a long list of things I really needed to get done – for work and for the personal project I am still plugging away at, which feels like it has no end in sight, ugh – and good because all I want lately is slow weekends. We hiked both Saturday and Sunday – on Saturday at Turkey Run Park in McLean, and on Sunday at Mason Neck, our favorite Virginia state park, in Lorton. We’d hoped to get out on the water on Sunday, but with all the rain we’ve had, the Potomac water levels were crazy high and moving fast – not exactly little duffer conditions. The rest of the weekend, we mostly just drifted around. I baked bread, Nugget and I walked to the library, and Peanut and I did some grocery shopping. It would’ve been perfect had I just not felt anxious/guilty about the work and project stuff I wasn’t doing.
Reading. Fairly slow, but thoroughly enjoyable, reading week around here. I finished up News from Thrush Green midweek, and there is really nothing like Miss Read to beat the stress of a fast-paced and demanding life. I love Thrush Green just as much as Fairacre by now, and it’s such a joy to spend more time in Miss Read’s worlds. Still looking for village calm and peace after finishing News, I turned to Marghanita Laski’s novel of post-war social changes, The Village. I’m reading it slowly and meditatively, but loving it.
Watching. Still working our way through the latest season of The Great British Baking Show. We’re down to the final four contestants now, and I’m in denial that we’re almost done and soon won’t have any more episodes to watch – sob. At least the first episode of Making It is available, so I’ve got something to look forward to. Oh, also, I’m pleased to report that the kids discovered SING last week, and I have now seen it eleventy-seven times.
Listening. Y’all are going to think I’m a huge dork, but I don’t even care. I have alternated between listening to The Great Courses on The English Novel via Audible and falling down a Fireside Collective rabbit hole, and I’m not even sad about it. (Please don’t stop reading.)
Making. More bread! And lists – lots of lists – of hiking and paddling gear, camera equipment, hikes to do and breweries to check out on our upcoming vacation to Lake Placid. Not much longer to wait now!
Blogging. I have a belated list of July’s reads coming on Wednesday, and on Friday I’m getting a bit glum about what a weird summer we’ve been having. It happens.
Wondering. Moms, what sorts of things did you do to encourage your kiddos to read? Peanut has the mechanical skills and is able to read quite a bit through a combination of sight words and phonics, and she’s totally book-crazy and given to carrying her books around the house and cuddling with them. But these impulses are at war with her inner drive not to do anything an adult appears to want her to do. I got her some super-cute early readers from the library, but she was all eye-rolly and ugh, Mom about them. I don’t want to turn her off books, so I’m not pushing them hard, but I’d love for her to actually spend a little time with them. Any advice?
Loving. It’s vinho verde season! I’ll happily drink rosé all year long, but I do think vinho verde is a summer wine. I love the lightness and the little bit of fizz – yum. Steve asked me to pick up some wine on Friday, and I tossed two bottles of vinho verde into my cart, and we enjoyed one on Friday evening. Summer perfection!
Asking. What are you reading this week?
covered in flour 
I think if you instill a love of books and stories then the love of reading will come. Kids are stubborn so if they feel you want them to read they are going to rebel but if books are just there and if the books are ones that really interest them then they will eventually pick them up. So, really, it is just a lot of things I am sure you already do–trips to the library, letting her pick out her own books even if it is the book on dinosaurs for the five millionth time, reading to her even if she can read on her own. If books are part of your family life then they will be part of her life too. Also, my kids were never enthralled by easy-reader books no matter how cute I thought they were. They were much more enthusiastic about reading when they made the jump to the next reading level. That being said, if you read the easy-reader books aloud to her, just as you would any library book, she will realize she can read them and probably pick them up on her own. I’ll stop now before I write a whole blog post in your comment section.
Such great tips – thank you so much! We definitely do the other things to make books appealing and make them part of the family life – i.e. the trips to the library where she can check out anything she wants, reading aloud to her, etc. I think those things are working for sure, because she really loves books, reading and stories. It’s such a relief to hear that your kids never got into the easy readers! I find them super irritating for a number of reasons (not least because even the “easiest” of them seem to contain words that are not sight words or easy to sound out – what gives??) but they are what’s available. I do think that she would really benefit from the confidence boost of reading a book for herself, but I am trying not to make a big deal out of it because I don’t want to stamp out the joy she has in reading. Thanks SO much for the tips and the encouragement! 🙂
We skipped early readers entirely, as I think I mentioned before. It sounds like with Peanut, she is ready, and you just need to find that *perfect* something that really catches her fancy. The key might just be a nice pulpy series. Your literature loving soul might cringe a little inside (mine did), but it will be worth it! My son tore through all the Ramona/Henry/Ralph Beverly Cleary books last summer after kindergarten, and was floundering a bit for new reading material. Another mom in a bookstore recommended Geronimo Stilton so we got one of those, and then we picked up a Magic Treehouse book at a library book sale. The Geronimo Stilton books are so brightly inked, they are almost like graphic novels, and they use a lot of super cheesy humor (literally cheese-related, as the characters are mice, but also corny-cheesy). They were originally published in Italian and the characters travel frequently on various far flung adventures. With all the spin-off books, including some where Geronimo’s sister Thea is the main character, there are well over 100 books. The Magic Treehouse books are about a pair of time-traveling boy-girl siblings, who similarly travel far and wide to complete various missions; there are probably around 60 or more volumes in this series. Both these series really sucked Frankie in, and he reports they were very popular with his classmates at school — they took turns to borrowing them from the school library. If Peanut gets into them as much as Frankie did, you’ll soon be longing for her to read something else, but just think of them as gateway books… they will lead to better things! I think for the first book in each series, I read the first chapter aloud, just for the exposure factor, and then Frankie was hooked and finished them himself, then plowed through dozens and dozens more independently.
Peanut loves the Magic Treehouse books! We read them together as a family because they’re beyond her skill set as an early reader. It’s hard to know exactly what she’s capable of, because she’s very cagey about showing off her skills. Thanks for the Geronimo Stilton recommendation! I’m going to have to check those out. I read comics and graphic novels, so she’s interested in that format, and your description sounds delightful. Thanks again!!
Also, if it’s not on your list already, you might want to look up Owl’s Head Mountain in Keene — it’s right off 73 between Keene and Cascade Lakes. The trail crosses private land and is closed on weekends, but if you are there mid-week, it is a perfect little mountain to climb with the kids — only half a mile to the top, but real rocky scrambles, and real views. It was the first mountain Frankie climbed by himself, when he was still two (although he rode down in the carrier). https://sarahikes.blogspot.com/2013/08/family-hike-up-owls-head-in-keene.html
Mount Jo is another great family friendly hike that would be great for your upcoming trip. Planning trips to the Adirondacks is SO fun!
We’re definitely going to hit Owl’s Head! I’ve been reading about the hike and it sounds perfect for us. Also, Frankie is WAY too cute! I’m definitely going to check out more of your posts as we plan our ADK trip. I’ve got some hikes in mind, but can definitely use more recommendations.