Bits and Bobs. Or Jims.

Greetings Bookworms!

It feels like a good day to spout nonsense on the internet, doesn’t it? Here are some disjointed thoughts and anecdotes.

FIRST: My precious perfect boy is a TOTAL chatterbox. He was a late walker but an early talker and his vocab has grown exponentially over the last few months. He’s going to be 2 in August. HOW EVEN??? We now have to pay careful attention to what we listen to on the car radio because a certain top 40 hit resulted in our toddler clearly enunciating the word “psycho.” So that’s fun. Actually, it really IS fun, but I’d rather he not pick up on this kind of lingo until he can understand context and nuance and why words might be hurtful.

He is already so much cooler than I am.

SECOND: Since Mr. ChattyPants has so much to say, we like to engage him in conversation. One of our favorite games is to have him name family members. My excellent brother-in-law, through no fault of his own, shares a first name with, like, half the family he married into. My entire Matron of Honor speech at their wedding hinged on this fact (it was an excessively charming speech if I do say so myself.) However. Since he’s the fifth Jim in the family, we’ve been calling him “Jim the New Guy” or “New Guy” or “TNG” since he started dating my sister-in-law over a decade ago. Hence, we call him “Uncle New Guy” for Sam to avoid confusion (“Uncle Jim/Jimmy” is already taken as it’s what THEIR daughter calls my husband. Are you confused yet?) Apparently my Sammers is kind of a troll, though, because whenever we ask him to repeat “New Guy” or “Uncle New Guy” he responds with “Old Guy.” My excellent BIL has taken it in stride. He’s a good egg. Re-reading this paragraph, I feel like I need a chart to explain the whole “Jim” situation properly, but also, nobody who isn’t me would care. So whatever. Sam calls his uncle “Old Guy” and it’s amazing.

THIRD: It’s my turn to host book club coming up and I’m having everyone read When Dimple Met Rishi (review) because I loved it so very much and we’ve had a string of downer books lately. They haven’t necessarily been bad books (although I have some very uncharitable feelings toward the Eckhart Tolle book we read), but I thought we could all use something bright to welcome summer. I went ahead and re visited the audio book to refresh my memory which was perfect timing because There’s Something about Sweetie released just as I finished my re-read so I got to dive in with my brain already firmly set in their fictional world. Sweetie was also an absolute joy to read, oozing with charm and bashing down stereotypes. Kartik Patel is officially my favorite literary Dad ever. (Sorry, Lara Jean’s dad, you’ve been bumped. Tough competition in the dad category, I’m afraid. No worries, bro, you’re still Top 5.)

FOURTH: Since I refuse to stop sharing toddler stories with you, how about some actual toddler stories? Some of Sam’s favorite books right now are Little Penguin Gets the Hiccups (he absolutely GUFFAWS at this one, it’s magic), When Your Elephant Has the Sniffles (he found a “hidden Mickey” in one of the illustrations which was astounding, accurate, and I’m fairly certain it was unintentional on the part of the illustrator), and I Know a Rhino (he asks for this one over and over in rapid succession.) And before you ask, yes, I obviously make realistic hiccuping noises and provide other voices as appropriate. READING IS FUN!

FIFTH: My current audio book is Helen Hoang’s latest, The Bride Test. So far so good, though it’s going to be really tough to top The Kiss Quotient (review). My current eyeball read is The Book of Flora by Meg Elison. The whole Road to Nowhere series has been outstanding (The Book of the Unnamed Midwife and The Book of Etta precede Flora). I’m hoping to pull together some coherent thoughts once I finish this book and write a post on the series in its entirety, but in case that doesn’t happen, it’s some seriously good stuff. In a violent, traumatic, post-apocalyptic, trigger-warnings-for-basically-everything sort of way. Be gentle with your bruised psyches, y’all, it’s a lot to take. Worth it, but a lot to take.

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