I copied this from startling lives blogspot
What you've got to do is mark the books you've read. Seeing the film doesnt count.
1 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
11 Little Women Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare William Shakespeare (some)
15 Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia CS Lewis
34 Emma Jane Austen
35 Persuasion Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernières
39 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh AA Milne
41 Animal Farm George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney, John Irving
45 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies William Golding
50 Atonement Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi Yann Martel
52 Dune Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
62 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
72 Dracula Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupery (a lovely, lovely book!)
93 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
94 Watership Down Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl (think ive read all her books)
100 Les Misérables Victor Hugo
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Nursing Fishy
Nursing my 18mo old is like
Nursing a singing octopus fish out of water
at an olympic competition for flopping
Our once restful bed is full of
flipping and flailing
humming and tapping
twisting and turning
Please don't talk with your mouth full dear fishy
those teeth pinch!
leaning and pulling
pinching and pushing
bending and leaning
and just when I've had enough
Just when I think I can't last one minute more
I look down at you in total frustration
Ready to take away your precious boobie
And your eyes sparkle up at me
You smile and I get the littlest peek
of your tounge and milk dribbles down your chin.
Keep nursing dear fishy.
I love you.
Written by T.L.V. aka "Milkmommie" on Mothering.com
Nursing a singing octopus fish out of water
at an olympic competition for flopping
Our once restful bed is full of
flipping and flailing
humming and tapping
twisting and turning
Please don't talk with your mouth full dear fishy
those teeth pinch!
leaning and pulling
pinching and pushing
bending and leaning
and just when I've had enough
Just when I think I can't last one minute more
I look down at you in total frustration
Ready to take away your precious boobie
And your eyes sparkle up at me
You smile and I get the littlest peek
of your tounge and milk dribbles down your chin.
Keep nursing dear fishy.
I love you.
Written by T.L.V. aka "Milkmommie" on Mothering.com
Sunday, August 10, 2008
bedtimes???
not here... not anymore
Sandra Dodd as always has something nice to say about "letting" your kids sleep when they like where they like:
As I'm writing this my son is sleeping on the sofa next to us. And happier, calmer and more peacefull than in a "routine" of being put to bed the same time every night...
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
long time no write
I'm back from my holiday now. We went to Reutte in Tirol, Austria for two weeks to visit my mum and go to the medieval festival / market where we sold handmade (by me) childrens clothes. We went by ferry Hull to Rotterdam and then travelled the ten hours to Austria in the car. William struggled with the journey which isnt surprising - being strapped into a car seat for such a long time. But considering the circumstances everything went very well!
We had a lovely time at my mums, we were able to go out for a few meals as mum watched William for a couple of hours. We went swimming and we went to the Sauna / Spa in Fuessen which was so beautifully relaxing!
We arrived back here on Tuesday morning and I think we are all glad to be back home. Although I could have stayed longer. Hopefully I will be able to go back some time this year. Two weeks is just too short.
When i got chance, after unpacking etc I checked my emails and read up on a few blogs i like to read. I was upset to discover one of my favourite blog writers, Veronika is not going to write any more. I loved reading her blog - she always got straight to the point and told it how it was.
I will have to subscribe to the Mothering magazine - she edits it - just to be able to read some sane peoples opinions ;oP
Today I finally got rid of our old double bed frame and chair with footstool to British Heart foundation. (British heart because my dad died of a heart attack 5 years ago)
I also managed to put Williams bed up in his room and it actually LOOKS like a childrens bedroom now. His toy kitchen is up there too and we have had a nap in his bed already and he has also emptied his kitchen and played with it all over the upstairs! I think he likes it!
The living room looks a lot better now we have gotten rid of the chair - a lot more space! (for william to mess up)
I also brought across a fair trade swinging hammock chair which is hung up on the swing hooks in the kitchen / conservatory at the moment but i want to get some fixings for the living room so I can move it about. It will also fit onto the extension arm of our swing outside so on nice summer days (of which of course we havent had any since coming back) it will be nice to hang out there and read a book or watch william play.
Which Im going to do now.
We had a lovely time at my mums, we were able to go out for a few meals as mum watched William for a couple of hours. We went swimming and we went to the Sauna / Spa in Fuessen which was so beautifully relaxing!
We arrived back here on Tuesday morning and I think we are all glad to be back home. Although I could have stayed longer. Hopefully I will be able to go back some time this year. Two weeks is just too short.
When i got chance, after unpacking etc I checked my emails and read up on a few blogs i like to read. I was upset to discover one of my favourite blog writers, Veronika is not going to write any more. I loved reading her blog - she always got straight to the point and told it how it was.
I will have to subscribe to the Mothering magazine - she edits it - just to be able to read some sane peoples opinions ;oP
Today I finally got rid of our old double bed frame and chair with footstool to British Heart foundation. (British heart because my dad died of a heart attack 5 years ago)
I also managed to put Williams bed up in his room and it actually LOOKS like a childrens bedroom now. His toy kitchen is up there too and we have had a nap in his bed already and he has also emptied his kitchen and played with it all over the upstairs! I think he likes it!
The living room looks a lot better now we have gotten rid of the chair - a lot more space! (for william to mess up)
I also brought across a fair trade swinging hammock chair which is hung up on the swing hooks in the kitchen / conservatory at the moment but i want to get some fixings for the living room so I can move it about. It will also fit onto the extension arm of our swing outside so on nice summer days (of which of course we havent had any since coming back) it will be nice to hang out there and read a book or watch william play.
Which Im going to do now.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
My first negative breastfeeding comment
So, we went to Mikes parents on Sunday, father's day. It was a nice day especially as we didnt have to do ANYTHING for a change. We still ended up doing loads, but not because we HAD to we WANTED to - there's a difference.
Anyhow, we went to his mum first (his parents divorced when he was 3) and we were just sat talking and William was playing a little but he was tired so he really only wanted me. After a while i picked him up and fed him and that calmed him down and he went off to play again for a bit. While i was feeding him though mikes mum said to me "it's about time he came off that isn't it" to which i just replied "no, not really". She didnt say anything else to me but i could hear her thinking (oh he's too old, he's gonna get spoiled blah blah ... )
She came round the other day too as she was in town and let another comment slip about our co sleeping arrangements. "When are you going to start sleeping in your own bed then?" again i just replied "when he's ready"
To be honest though i know where she is coming from. before i knew about the benefits of co sleeping, the natural instinctive urge to have my baby with me aswell for as long as possible and most importantly probably, before i was pregnant / had william and i "Knew it all" you could have found us all talking about how Mikes daughter from his previous relationship was STILL in the same room as her mum and she was "STILL" being rocked to sleep and how S., her mum was making a rod for her own back by not letting her fall asleep by herself. And how M. would NEVER learn to fall asleep by herself. I was going to be so much of a better mother and "teach my child to sleep by himself"... So i can understand, why to her it seems like i have just given up and am "just as bad" as S. It makes me laugh now how much I've changed and how far I've come.
To make things easier for us all we have even bought a super king size bed so we can all fit in comfortably! And Williams bedroom is more like a storage room at the moment anyway... :oP
So I guess i will be getting more comments as time goes on - not that it will stop me from breastfeeding my son!
Anyhow, we went to his mum first (his parents divorced when he was 3) and we were just sat talking and William was playing a little but he was tired so he really only wanted me. After a while i picked him up and fed him and that calmed him down and he went off to play again for a bit. While i was feeding him though mikes mum said to me "it's about time he came off that isn't it" to which i just replied "no, not really". She didnt say anything else to me but i could hear her thinking (oh he's too old, he's gonna get spoiled blah blah ... )
She came round the other day too as she was in town and let another comment slip about our co sleeping arrangements. "When are you going to start sleeping in your own bed then?" again i just replied "when he's ready"
To be honest though i know where she is coming from. before i knew about the benefits of co sleeping, the natural instinctive urge to have my baby with me aswell for as long as possible and most importantly probably, before i was pregnant / had william and i "Knew it all" you could have found us all talking about how Mikes daughter from his previous relationship was STILL in the same room as her mum and she was "STILL" being rocked to sleep and how S., her mum was making a rod for her own back by not letting her fall asleep by herself. And how M. would NEVER learn to fall asleep by herself. I was going to be so much of a better mother and "teach my child to sleep by himself"... So i can understand, why to her it seems like i have just given up and am "just as bad" as S. It makes me laugh now how much I've changed and how far I've come.
To make things easier for us all we have even bought a super king size bed so we can all fit in comfortably! And Williams bedroom is more like a storage room at the moment anyway... :oP
So I guess i will be getting more comments as time goes on - not that it will stop me from breastfeeding my son!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Ten ways we misunderstand children
By Jan Hunt, M.Sc.
1. We expect children to be able to do things before they are ready.
We ask an infant to keep quiet. We ask a 2-year-old to sit still. We ask a 4-year-old to clean his room. In all of these situations, we are being unrealistic. We are setting ourselves up for disappointment and setting up the child for repeated failures to please us. Yet many parents ask their young children to do things that even an older child would find difficult. In short, we ask children to stop acting their age.
2. We become angry when a child fails to meet our needs.
A child can only do what he can do. If a child cannot do something we ask, it is unfair and unrealistic to expect or demand more, and anger only makes things worse. A 2-year-old can only act like a 2-year-old, a 5-year-old cannot act like a 10-year-old, and a 10-year-old cannot act like an adult. To expect more is unrealistic and unhelpful. There are limits to what a child can manage, and if we don't accept those limits, it can only result in frustration on both sides.
3. We mistrust the child's motives.
If a child cannot meet our needs, we assume that he is being defiant, instead of looking closely at the situation from the child's point of view, so we can determine the truth of the matter. In reality, a "defiant" child may be ill, tired, hungry, in pain, responding to an emotional or physical hurt, or struggling with a hidden cause such as food allergy. Yet we seem to overlook these possibilities in favor of thinking the worst about the child's "personality".
4. We don't allow children to be children.
We somehow forget what it was like to be a child ourselves, and expect the child to act like an adult instead of acting his age. A healthy child will be rambunctious, noisy, emotionally expressive, and will have a short attention span. All of these "problems" are not problems at all, but are in fact normal qualities of a normal child. Rather, it is our society and our society's expectations of perfect behavior that are abnormal.
5. We get it backwards.
We expect, and demand, that the child meet our needs - for quiet, for uninterrupted sleep, for obedience to our wishes, and so on. Instead of accepting our parental role to meet the child's needs, we expect the child to care for ours. We can become so focussed on our own unmet needs and frustrations that we forget this is a child, who has needs of his own.
6. We blame and criticize when a child makes a mistake.
Yet children have had very little experience in life, and they will inevitably make mistakes. Mistakes are a natural part of learning at any age. Instead of understanding and helping the child, we blame him, as though he should be able to learn everything perfectly the first time. To err is human; to err in childhood is human and unavoidable. Yet we react to each mistake, infraction of a rule, or misbehavior with surprise and disappointment. It makes no sense to understand that a child will make mistakes, and then to react as though we think the child should behave perfectly at all times.
7. We forget how deeply blame and criticism can hurt a child.
Many parents are coming to understand that physically hurting a child is wrong and harmful, yet many of us forget how painful angry words, insults, and blame can be to a child who can only believe that he is at fault.
8. We forget how healing loving actions can be.
We fall into vicious cycles of blame and misbehavior, instead of stopping to give the child love, reassurance, self-esteem, and security with hugs and kind words.
9. We forget that our behavior provides the most potent lessons to the child.
It is truly "not what we say but what we do" that the child takes to heart. A parent who hits a child for hitting, telling him that hitting is wrong, is in fact teaching that hitting is right, at least for those in power. It is the parent who responds to problems with peaceful solutions who is teaching his child how to be a peaceful adult. So-called problems present our best opportunity for teaching values, because children learn best when they are learning about real things in real life.
10. We see only the outward behavior, not the love and good intentions inside the child.
When a child's behavior disappoints us, we should, more than anything else we do, "assume the best". We should assume that the child means well and is only behaving as well as possible considering all the circumstances (both obvious and hidden from us), together with his level of experience in life. If we always assume the best about our child, the child will be free to do his best. If we give only love, love is all we will receive.
From the Natural Child Project
I guess the first step is realizing what we're doing... Once we've realized, we can think about our actions and do something to change within ourselves to help lead a harmonious life with our children and start accepting them as part of a society in which everyone deserves the same respect and love regardless of their age.
1. We expect children to be able to do things before they are ready.
We ask an infant to keep quiet. We ask a 2-year-old to sit still. We ask a 4-year-old to clean his room. In all of these situations, we are being unrealistic. We are setting ourselves up for disappointment and setting up the child for repeated failures to please us. Yet many parents ask their young children to do things that even an older child would find difficult. In short, we ask children to stop acting their age.
2. We become angry when a child fails to meet our needs.
A child can only do what he can do. If a child cannot do something we ask, it is unfair and unrealistic to expect or demand more, and anger only makes things worse. A 2-year-old can only act like a 2-year-old, a 5-year-old cannot act like a 10-year-old, and a 10-year-old cannot act like an adult. To expect more is unrealistic and unhelpful. There are limits to what a child can manage, and if we don't accept those limits, it can only result in frustration on both sides.
3. We mistrust the child's motives.
If a child cannot meet our needs, we assume that he is being defiant, instead of looking closely at the situation from the child's point of view, so we can determine the truth of the matter. In reality, a "defiant" child may be ill, tired, hungry, in pain, responding to an emotional or physical hurt, or struggling with a hidden cause such as food allergy. Yet we seem to overlook these possibilities in favor of thinking the worst about the child's "personality".
4. We don't allow children to be children.
We somehow forget what it was like to be a child ourselves, and expect the child to act like an adult instead of acting his age. A healthy child will be rambunctious, noisy, emotionally expressive, and will have a short attention span. All of these "problems" are not problems at all, but are in fact normal qualities of a normal child. Rather, it is our society and our society's expectations of perfect behavior that are abnormal.
5. We get it backwards.
We expect, and demand, that the child meet our needs - for quiet, for uninterrupted sleep, for obedience to our wishes, and so on. Instead of accepting our parental role to meet the child's needs, we expect the child to care for ours. We can become so focussed on our own unmet needs and frustrations that we forget this is a child, who has needs of his own.
6. We blame and criticize when a child makes a mistake.
Yet children have had very little experience in life, and they will inevitably make mistakes. Mistakes are a natural part of learning at any age. Instead of understanding and helping the child, we blame him, as though he should be able to learn everything perfectly the first time. To err is human; to err in childhood is human and unavoidable. Yet we react to each mistake, infraction of a rule, or misbehavior with surprise and disappointment. It makes no sense to understand that a child will make mistakes, and then to react as though we think the child should behave perfectly at all times.
7. We forget how deeply blame and criticism can hurt a child.
Many parents are coming to understand that physically hurting a child is wrong and harmful, yet many of us forget how painful angry words, insults, and blame can be to a child who can only believe that he is at fault.
8. We forget how healing loving actions can be.
We fall into vicious cycles of blame and misbehavior, instead of stopping to give the child love, reassurance, self-esteem, and security with hugs and kind words.
9. We forget that our behavior provides the most potent lessons to the child.
It is truly "not what we say but what we do" that the child takes to heart. A parent who hits a child for hitting, telling him that hitting is wrong, is in fact teaching that hitting is right, at least for those in power. It is the parent who responds to problems with peaceful solutions who is teaching his child how to be a peaceful adult. So-called problems present our best opportunity for teaching values, because children learn best when they are learning about real things in real life.
10. We see only the outward behavior, not the love and good intentions inside the child.
When a child's behavior disappoints us, we should, more than anything else we do, "assume the best". We should assume that the child means well and is only behaving as well as possible considering all the circumstances (both obvious and hidden from us), together with his level of experience in life. If we always assume the best about our child, the child will be free to do his best. If we give only love, love is all we will receive.
From the Natural Child Project
I guess the first step is realizing what we're doing... Once we've realized, we can think about our actions and do something to change within ourselves to help lead a harmonious life with our children and start accepting them as part of a society in which everyone deserves the same respect and love regardless of their age.
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