Fun with Babes

Hey, I missed my Walking in Wuhan this week.  I've been home all week with Babes who is out of school and we've been watching movies, baking, knitting (well, I've been knitting), having fancy tea parties, going out to breakfast, and just generally having fun.  I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed going places with her, and also how challenging it has gotten to keep her amused for longer than a couple of hours at a time (I personally think this is why they invented preschool).
We've been listening to Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men,  it's a hilariously funny book (audiobook for us) about 9 year old Tiffany Aching and her adventures with the Nac Mac Feegle (or the wee free folk) against a fairy queen.  I think it's a little advanced for Babes, but mostly because the narrator speaks really fast and the Nac Mac Feegle tend to speak funny.  But with slow going and lots of stopping I think she's getting as much out of it as she got out of Matilda by Roald Dahl (which was also a wee bit over her head, but she seemed to understand most of what was going on and seemed to really enjoy the book).
By the way Happy Valentine's Day to you all.  This was actually the first time I've celebrated Valentine's day in awhile.  I mostly think on it as a way to sell more flowers and candy, so we usually don't do anything, but Babes was so excited by the prospect of a day devoted to love that we had to celebrate it.  So we did what any self respecting princess in training would do.... we had a tea party:

while watching a movie

I have been mad at my blog.... Ok not really, I'm more mad at myself.  I restored most of the pictures to my blog last week, but I haven't wanted to blog AT ALL this week.  Stupid blog! 
But I feel like I should break the web silence and at least do a crafting update to get something up here.  One of the most awesome things that I've discovered in the last year is the public library ecollection.  It is awesome!  One of the things that I hated most about living overseas was having to plan your reading materials out 6 months in advance.  Before whenever we went home we would hit up the used bookstore and buy what we hoped would be 6 months of books (just so you know that's one heavy box).  And, of course, we would always run out of books around month 4, but a used bookstore only has so many books. Then my sister bought me a Sony Reader for Christmas...  I poo pooed her at first, I mean why would I need a reader, I like paper books gosh darn it, and I'm not going to buy books for $10 are you crazy, etc, etc.  But she bought it, so I set it up, but then discovered that you can use your local library with the reader (from anywhere in the world)!  Now I can go to the library while I'm in China, download a book, and read it anywhere!  There are tons of new books for me to read all the time! 
At the same time, I discovered audio books.  I have tried audiobooks in the past, but I just didn't like them.  You've got some dude reading and pretending to be a lady, and more often than not they have annoying voices, but I've discovered that while I listen to an audio book I can knit at the same time!  (as I write that sentence I realize how really lame I am, but I don't care).  So that has lead to me doing a lot of headphone listening... and basically this is a long winded introduction to the earbud covers that I knitted while watching a movie yesterday to turn my earbuds from tangled to tame while sitting around in my purse. 
hopelessly tangled
perfectly tame

Perspective

I've been reading "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman for my book club and I'm so depressed. I reached a point today where I just couldn't read any more. I hate it when authors of fiction or non fiction put horrific things in their book just to get a reaction. This book has some prime examples of gratuitous heart string pulling. The book is about a Hmong (small ethnic group that lived in Laos) refugee family in California that have an epileptic daughter and the gap in the culture between the family and the doctors. The author alternates between the medical story of the child and the larger backdrop of the conflict in Laos/Vietnam that ultimately led to the family claiming asylum in the US.
War is horrible. I understand that. I also understand that people do horrible things to each other during wars. And yes, personal accounts always make things more real, so I understand that a few stories are necessary. So I was fine during accounts of kids getting sick and not having medicine. Of having to leave sick and elderly parents along the road while you try to flee, or eating clothes when there is no other food. I was even ok with the story of the mom whose child starved to death in her arms because she didn't have any milk for him. But she went one further, and I'm not even going to type it because then I'd just be putting that horrible image in other people's minds, if you want to know what it was read the book.
Anyway, the whole chapter just reminded me what I sometimes forget every now and then. Kids don't really need all the extra crap that we get for them. Really they just need 1. food 2. shelter (and clothing) 3. love. All the rest is just bonus. I generally try to be reasonable, and I'm not trying to make Babes' childhood the best ever, I just want her to be well loved, healthy and reasonably stimulated. When she gets older I want her to be able to provide for herself, be well loved, and enjoy what she does. But I occasionally do freak out that she is eating from cups that have some random possibly bad for you ingredient in the plastic, or ponder for hours whether or not she should start drinking cows milk because of the hormones.... And then I read something that really makes me thankful that I even have these choices. I am so thankful that I have always been able to give Babes enough milk or food or whatever, and that I have not had to make a choice between her or me. I do not have to try to hide her, or worry about bad people finding her. I can spend all of my energy just giving her love. How wonderful is that?