The week of standardized testing is always a little crazy around our house. First I have to round up babysitters for everyone under 8 or so, then we have to actually manage to get out of the house by 8 AM. For THREE days in a row! This highly unusual event takes Herculean effort, along with much cuss-stifling on my part as I race out the door shooing kids in front of me like a cow dog wrangling calves.
One of the nice things about standardized testing, however, is that once the big kids get settled into the test and I make sure they’re filling in the right place on the bubble sheet, I actually have time to read. This morning I finally got around to finishing Barbara Curtis’s Mommy Manual.
Confesssion: I have a terrible habit when I read. Whenever I find a page that I’d like to go back and read again, I dog ear the page. I have even– oh horrors– been known to occasionally dog-ear library books (ever-so-lightly, and I straighten the pages before I return the book). My hubby hates it; I try not to dog-ear his books because he finds it so upsetting. I’ve told him it’s actually a compliment– it means I found the writing important enough to revisit.
I’ve taken a picture of Barbara’s book for you; I hope you can see. Lots of very worthwhile books will only get 3 or 4 dog-ears from me. Barbara’s book rated eight dog-ears.
Many of the pages I marked contain ideas I want to try this very week. And even the stuff that was not new to me was encouraging, because it affirmed the parenting that my husband and I are already doing– things like training kids to help out from an early age, and encouraging children to become competent instead of always assuming they need help. I came away from the book realizing I need to re-do my job list, and assign my younger kids more meaningful jobs. A pitfall of having so many capable teens is that I have been a little lax about bumping the middle-sized kids up to more challenging jobs.
Anyway, if your parenting needs a dose of encouragement and some new ideas, check out The Mommy Manual. I’m glad I took time to read it!
I'm Mary, wife to John, and mom to 10 kids ages 3-20. Six of them were adopted, from Ethiopia and Korea. I spend my days applying Bandaids, reminding kids to use their inside voices, persuading kids fractions are useful, cooking spicy ethnic food, and snapping gig after gig of pictures. Very late at night, I write about it all.
this looks like a must read, I will put it on my reading list for March……thanks for sharing it and CONGRATULATIONS on your wonderful news! so very exciting……..you are truly blessed!
Meg
Mary,
I would love it (and I’m sure many here would too) if you could tell us what sort of chores your kids have depending on age (even the 2 and 4 yr old). I always assumed that kids got chores when they hit 14…but I’m seeing more and more kids with chores around 6.
And how do u keep them motivated to do their chores and not throw tantrums or take forever to do them just to spite you?
Your husband should buy for you some of those Scotch post-it book marks, to show he loves you AND the books.
If it’s my book, I do the same – dog ear, write notes, underline.
Shhh. I dog ear too. Even library books.
What kind of chores do you give your children based on age? I really would like to know…and whether that’s met with temper tantrums or delibrately messing things up etc.
I’ll blog about the new chore lists when I get them worked out….
Mary
I love to type up quotes from books, but cant get to them right away so I use post it “tabbies”. Love them! http://www.3m.com/us/office/postit/products/prod_ft_ss.html (love the blog too)
oh mary, if it were my book i’d have to hurt you! lol you need to get some of those 1″ sq. postit notes to stick on pages you want to return to, esp. if it is a borrowed book. there might be others like me out there in the wide world.
To echo the others on the post-its…
The reason that the guy invented that glue was specifically to make a moveable bookmark. I use many sizes depending on whether I want to make a note or just mark what page I’m on now, etc.
You could try this fun item from Levenger’s (AL5635):
http://tinyurl.com/yeec25
Or their page points (AB0210): http://tinyurl.com/k3rwp
I’m not affiliated with them in any way, but LOOOOVE their stuff.
When I saw your title “the mommy manual” I “ran” over to you because I thought it was something about “egyptian mummies!” Thinking of the movie “mummies” I guess I mixed something up, lol !
Dogears as measurement of interest/relevance. Good idea. I do it too! Especially travel books.
Here from BCs.
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