Book Clubbing

Partly because I love to read, and partly because we have a spare sitting room we never use, I decided to start a book club this year.

The club is made up of some of my friends (Kristina, Maggie, Melissa, and Alisha) as well as some people that Kristina knows (Shannon, Carolyn, and Allison). In total we have eight members (Allison is an "international member" who lives in Scotland, but will be reading along with us).

We decided to only read contemporary fiction (books published after 1990) because most of us hadn't read much in this area. Contemporary books also make for easier discussion because your understanding isn't held back by your lack of knowledge about the time and place the book was written in (no researching 18th century British marriage customs for me).

Tonight was our first meeting. We introduced ourselves, got to know each other, and then voted on books to read. Here is our list for the year:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
My Sister's Keeper
Water for Elephants
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Road
Watermelon

Here is a picture of everyone who was in attendance (from left to right: me, Alisha, Kristina, Carolyn, Shannon, and Melissa)...

We meet again in six weeks to discuss suspicious canine deaths and characters with aversions to the color yellow.

-- Lisa

We're Matched!

Friday night, Shawn and I got a call from our adoption agency to let us know that we had been officially "matched," which means that an expectant mom has chosen us as the possible adoptive parents of her child.

I cannot even begin to say how excited we are. Shawn had to ask our social worker to stop for a minute so that he could take in all the information. He even wrote himself a little note that said: "Friday, January 25, 2008. 5:47 PM" to commemorate the call!

The baby is due March 19th and it's going to be a little girl. We are also planning to meet with the mother this Friday. To say that both of us are absolutely thrilled that we get to meet her would be the understatement of the century.

Please keep us, along with mom and baby, in your prayers.

-- Lisa

The Daring Book for Girls

I finally bought a copy of this book today after wanting it to get it for the last few months – and, let me tell you, it is awesome. When I initially heard about the book, I thought it would have a lot of uber-girly advice about holding tea parties and making tiaras, but it actually has a lot of old-school games, creative ideas, and fun facts and information about the inspirational role women have played in our history. I want to get a copy for every young woman I know because a lot of the topics brought back happy memories from my own girlhood.

Among some of my favorite subjects:

* 14 different types of tag (my personal favorites: freeze tag and TV tag)
* Card games
* Female pirates
* How to power a clock with lemons (it has something to do with the acid in the lemons being like the acid in a battery)
* Jump rope rhymes (Cinderella dressed in yellow…)
* Making a friendship bracelets
* Pressing flowers
* Sleepover games (I would never, ever play Bloody Mary (because I'm waaaaay too chicken), but I was frequently mystified by the levitational abilities of my friends during Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board)

I can't wait to challenge someone to a game of hopscotch.

-- Lisa

Baby Talk for Non-Talkers

One cool thing we've come across as we are researching parenting stuff is the concept of baby sign language. Baby sign is exactly what it sounds like - parents use hand gestures and motions inspired by American Sign Language to communicate with their small children. Apparently, kids as young as nine or ten months old can start using signs to tell you what they need/want. The baby sign movement is catching on as more and more hospitals and day care center are offering classes for parents and children. The signs generally start out pretty basic ("eat," "drink," "more," "hurt"), and can get more complex and abstract. Some babies can learn up to fifty or sixty signs.

The great thing about this is that it can help reduce frustration for both parents and baby. A small child may known what he wants, but is unable to tell mom and dad because he does not possess the muscle control and vocabulary to say the actual words. With a simple sign, he can let mom and dad know that he requires his "teddy bear." The enhanced communication can help reduce the number of crying fits and also keep mom and dad from pulling out their hair wondering what their very precious yet very loud child could possibly want.

At first, we worried that teaching sign language to a baby would delay her ability to speak. After all, if you could just sign to get what you wanted, why would you bother to go onto words? Actually, the opposite may be true. Signing to your baby can help boost her communicate skills by teaching her the connection between words and objects/concepts. Some studies show babies who have been exposed to sign language actually grow up to have superior verbal abilities to non-signing babies! To support this, a parent should always remember to say the words while signing to reinforce the connection between the spoken word and the sign for it (i.e. make the sign for "more" and "juice" while saying "would you like some more juice?"). In addition, baby is spending quality time communicating with mom and dad at an earlier age which helps to grow the bond between them.

Signing is similar to crawling. While baby has not yet developed the muscle control and balance required to walk, he can move around the house (and get into mischief) through crawling. Once he masters these skills, he leaves crawling behind and is ready to start cruising around on two legs like the rest of us. A baby who signs is simply communicating before he has the physical ability to speak. Once he learns how to say these words, he won't bother with making the signs for them anymore. If you've got the know-how it's much easier just to say what you want.

Based on all this, Shawn and I think that we will probably try some form of baby sign in our house. It's important to be committed in order to make baby signing work, but we believe it will pay off in the end.

We'll let you know how it goes!

-- Lisa

PS - Some good info on baby sign: an overview from Wikipedia, an article from Parents magazine, a great book I found, a video of a real, super cute baby signing, and some video examples of signs baby can learn.

Movies We Love

Shawn and I recently have taken to swapping our no longer needed items with other folks online. There are quite a few sites out there for swapping books and DVD's, but none are better than BookMooch and SwapaDVD.

We especially enjoy the DVD site since we love movies, but are also not too keen on the idea of spending loads to expand our current titles. Especially while we have so many disks collecting dust on our shelf (yes, Hotel Rwanda and Million Dollar Baby were incredible movies, but they're not the kind of films you watch over and over again). But this site offers the best of both worlds – get rid of movies you don't want and get those you do.

So, in honor of our new disks and the old disks we've always loved, here are some of the titles we own categorized for our convenience...

Romantic comedies* for which there is no good reason to like except for the fact that of course, we like them...

13 Going on 30
How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Two Weeks Notice
The Wedding Singer




Romantic comedies for which there is very good reason to like...

Guys and Dolls
Say Anything
Sleepless in Seattle
The Princess Bride
You've Got Mail





Movies which feed my addiction to all things Jane Austen...

Bride & Prejudice
Bridget Jones's Diary
Clueless
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice (BBC)
Sense and Sensibility
You've Got Mail



Overly girly movies that Shawn refuses to watch over and over again...

Drop Dead Gorgeous
Legally Blonde
Little Women







Overly boyish movies that I refuse to watch over and over again...

The Aviator
Casino
Cast Away
Catch Me If You Can
Gladiator
Rounders
Star Wars: Episodes I-III



Movies both of us will happily watch over and over again...

Back to the Future
A Beautiful Mind
Chicago
Dead Man Walking
Gone with the Wind
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
A League of Their Own
Mean Girls
On the Waterfront
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Star Wars: Episodes IV-VI
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Walk the Line

TV shows we will watch over and over again...

30 Rock
Arrested Development
The Office (BBC)
The Office (NBC)






Comedies that make us squirt milk out our noses (if we happen to be drinking milk while watching them)...

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Anchorman
Dodgeball
Meet the Fockers
Meet the Parents
Office Space
Spaceballs
Talladega Nights
The 40 Year-Old Virgin
Wedding Crashers

For when we're feeling heroic...

Batman Begins
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 3






Kids movies we are not ashamed to love...

Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast
A Bug's Life
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Finding Nemo
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Little Mermaid
Mary Poppins
Monsters, Inc.
Shrek
Shrek 2
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Christmas movies that are even good in the summertime...

A Christmas Story
Elf
It’s a Wonderful Life
Miracle on 34th Street





-- Lisa

* Film critic, Roger Ebert, once wrote that, "romantic comedies are the comfort food of the movies. There are nights when you don't feel like a chef who thinks he's more important than the food. When you feel like sliding into a booth at some Formica joint where the waitress calls you "hon" and writes your order on a green and white guest check." I whole-heartedly agree.

Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone. And 2007 has been especially good to us. We've had another great year as husband and wife. We've been able to travel and experience new things and even completed a few projects around the house. Most importantly though, we started the process to adopt and we're both wishing and hoping that in 2008 we can realize our dream of becoming parents!

We rung in the new year by having dinner with Shawn's sister, Jenny, her husband, Dave, and their kids, Tori and Austin. We then went home to collapse on the couch and fall asleep before we saw the ball drop. It was very festive!

As for New Year's resolutions, neither of us really make them. There doesn't seem to be much point because you generally end up breaking them two weeks into the year anyhow. As Mark Twain so eloquently put it, "New Year's Day is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

-- Lisa