Blustery Weeks and Too Fridgid Birthdays

Like most of the rest of the country, Ohio has been having some extremely blustery weeks. That is to be expected in January, but it can be awfully disappointing for girls who are born during this month. Unfortunately for my daughter, Emily, she is one such girl. She was actually born during a blizzard, so I guess that should have clued us in to what the future might hold.

Her actual birthday, which was last Tuesday, wasn't too bad. It was one of the two days she actually had school, so she did get to take her cupcakes. I made the minion cupcakes, I had seen online, that use Twinkies for the bodies.  They didn't turn out quite as nicely as I had hoped since the black gel I used for mouths and goggles ran a bit, but the children enjoyed them anyway. It was also the day she let me put her hair up. Now for those of you who don't know, Emily has refused since birth to let me touch her hair. She had received some new fancy hair bands for Christmas, however, and actually asked me to put her hair in a ponytail. Her instructions, "Make sure it's on the side."

Picture from the website. Mine were much smearier.

Birthday girl with a pony on the side!

As the week wore on, the weather worsened, and school was canceled repeatedly, it became clear that we were going to have to cancel her weekend birthday party. Understandably she was disappointed, but she wanted her friends to be safe and to be able to actually come to her ninth birthday celebration. I told her we would reschedule in a couple of weeks when, hopefully, the weather is warmer. And by warmer, I mean at least 32 degrees.

At this point I would gladly have begun hibernation, but we were out of milk and staples, so I decided to drag myself to the grocery store. Since her party was going to be canceled and she hates to shop, I dropped her off at my mother's, on the other side of town, to spend the night. By sheer coincidence, the library is on that side of town. Naturally it stood to reason that since I had to pass by the library on my way out of town for shopping, I should stop and get a new stack of books. And it's a good thing I did because the next day the library closed due to inclement weather!

Dealing with blustery weather too frigid for parties, caused me to check out a slew of books on winter and birthdays. I also managed to slip in one about a sasquatch which looked interesting. So when Sunday afternoon rolled around, the time I usually write my blog posts, I asked Emily if she would like to read some of the book selections to me.

She chose four out of the eight books I brought home and started by reading Larf, the sasquatch story. Larf is happy with his solitary life. He likes to be alone with his pet rabbit Eric. And, he likes the fact that most people don't believe he exists. Until one day, when he reads in the newspaper that a sasquatch will be making an appearance at the nearby town of Hunderfitz. Realizing he might not be the only living sasquatch, he quickly dons a disguise and heads to town. What he finds isn't what he expects, but all turns out well in the end.

Next she read Poppleton in Winter. Although Poppleton books are bit below her reading level, she still loves the character very much, and she told me so. Since I want reading to be fun for her, I encourage her to read whatever she enjoys no matter the level. In this book we found one story about icicles, one story about the bust he makes of his friend Cherry Sue, and one story about his birthday. We weren't expecting a story about his birthday so that was an exciting bonus.

After that, she read Mouse's Birthday. It was a simple book with short sentences which she found a little short and boring, but it would be a great book for beginning readers. She did laugh as each friend of mouse came and tried to squeeze into his house. And since each friend was larger then the last it was inevitable that something was going to happen to his tiny home. To find out what, I suggest you snag a copy for yourselves.

And last but not least, she read Duncan Rumplemeyer's Bad Birthday. It too was geared for younger children, but it did hold her attention better then Mouse's Birthday. Duncan learns a good lesson after all his friends leave his party. He learns that sharing isn't as bad as he thought, and it's always more fun to make rude noises when you have a friend around.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. And feel free to drop by my personal website, Fun With Aileen, any day of the week for even more on reading, writing, my very own early grade chapter book, Fern Valley, and my soon to be released sequel, Return To Fern Valley, coming summer of 2014! I'm also on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpses into my days.