Clover Lane

I had a sweet passionate request from a reader for girl book suggestions.  I have to help her! I understand the plea, and the pressure, and the pain...the pain that bored children can cause us moms. :)  You all came through for me, beyond my wildest dreams, with my 13 year old boy book suggestions.  Could I please ask you to offer up some 10 year old girl book suggestions?
I know Abbey loved Sammy Keyes mystery books and as much as we wrack our brains, we can't remember much more than that.  That was all of 6 years ago!  (My brain is sleep-deprived, Abbey's is full of chemistry, math, psychology...)

3/4 of a 32 oz. box of pasta (I use rotini or ziti)
1/4 cup butter
1 envelope Knorr's vegetable soup mix
1 1/2 teaspoons all purpose flour
2 cups milk
2 TBS grated Parmesan cheese

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add pasta.  Cook till al dente, and drain.

2. In a saucepan melt butter.  Blend Knorr soup mix with flour and milk, and then add to saucepan.  Stir.  Bring to a soft boil, and then reduce heat to low and simmer for 7-10 minutes.  Stir in grated cheese.

3. Toss with cooked pasta and serve.

(This makes enough for all seven of us....I usually serve with a salad and garlic bread.)

Angela DeMuro sent me a copy of one of her cute books in her Land of Mu series-she wrote them and illustrated them herself and boy, what talent!  This story is about a boy and his friends wishing for snow. (Which we are not, as you know, doing here!)  So cute.  You can purchase her books from her website and here is her blog.



A reader suggested this book for my boys and we picked it up from the library and loved it-it's called Brothers at Bat.  It's about a large family (16 kids!)-the 12 boys formed their own baseball team.  All I thought of the entire time I was reading this book to Patrick was, "Oh that angel of a mother-12 boys!!!"  She was smart no doubt-she sent them outside to play all day long!

We have AWFUL cases of Cabin Fever over here.

Anyways, I love this photo above-my Matthew, on a warm spring day long long ago in a far away land, taking deep breaths of that sweet-smelling green grass.  He made me laugh so hard when he did this-flung himself out the door and onto the ground in our front yard-and that moment always comes to my mind on days like we are having now-long, cold, dark, dreary, gray days of February.  One day soon we will see color and light and feel warmth, right?  I'm not sure we can stand it all much longer.

Oh my goodness, you guys really came through for me.  Thank you SO much!  When I quickly typed out that post last Sunday night (after a frustrating argument with a boy who insists that there are NO good books and he's soooo bored to death because I never let him go on the computer or play video games...wahhhh!), I woke up to so many terrific comments filled with book suggestions.  I took the liberty to order a bunch from the library and you all gave me this incredible resource of books to have for this "bored boy" age group for the rest of my life.

Parenting is hard sometimes in this day and age and it makes me sad.  Sometimes I doubt myself for sure.  I am told often by my kids that we are the only family that doesn't allow this or that.  Now I know this isn't true, and I try hard to be fair about rules but I have to trust my maternal instincts also, and insist on the standards I feel comfortable with in my house.  But I get weary sometimes of all of it.  It's so much easier just to say yes, go ahead, rot your brain out and stop bothering me.  I want my kids to be readers, I want them to be smart, I want them to not grow up staring at a darn screen their whole lives.  I miss the days when us kids had a few choices:
1. Go outside and play-with or without friends.
2. Stay inside and play.
3. Read a book.

Thanks again for all your suggestions!  We have a stack awaiting us at the library.