What we read before bed last night

Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi

I love everything about this old book, which describes the yearly nesting of the swallows at the Mission of San Juan Capistrano, and of the boy named Juan and his friend, the elderly gardener and bell-ringer Julian (which, YES, you must pronounce WHO lee ahn) who so eagerly await their return each year. There are two songs to sing (which you might remember vexes me) but they do have the notes to help out, which would help me much more if I had actually been paying attention back in1979 when Mrs. Gail Storey tried to teach me piano theory, or even in 1981-1983 when my choir teacher (a Miss Kay Doucet) and also band director (Mr. Todd, who never truly forgave me for needing braces and messing up my embouchure on my French horn mouthpiece. Yes, I had to look up how to spell embouchure. And yes, it was a terribly aggravating word for the auto correct function on the iPad) who both tried their best to teach me how to sight read. Anyway, the book is terrific. Read it and make up your own melody if you must. I especially love how the male protagonist engages with the natural world with such gentleness and wonder. Great role model.

Dodsworth in New York by Tim Egan

I'm not sure if Dodsworth is as dog or a mole, but I am sure that my kids think he and his crazy duck sidekick are hilarious. This is the first in a trilogy--they also travel to Paris and London, and see all the major landmarks, which means you can count them as an informal geography lesson.

Wind Says Good Night by Katy Rydell, illustrated by David Jorgensen

This is such a sweet, sleepy story, sublimely illustrated. It tells of a little girl who simply can't fall asleep because there is a mockingbird singing outside her window. It turns out that Mockingbird simply can't stop singing until Cricket stops playing, and Cricket can't stop playing until Frog stops strumming, and there is an entire contagion of delightful things that must end before all the creatures can finally sleep.

I had written this entire post last night, including what I felt to be some pretty entertaining commentary on the Olympics in general, and the hammer throw in particular (the kids fell into insuppressible giggles when they saw this for the first time, and I just think it's funny how hammer throw sounds so much like 'hammer toe') and I clicked over to my Olympics app to check a couple of things and when I returned, my entire treatise was ERASED. Which is debilitating. Maybe I'll try to replicate the commentary soon, but I can't promise it will be quite as inspired as the first draft.

Some friends came over to swim, and Mrs. J made medals so we could have our own junior Olympics in the pool. It was fun, but I can't say that all the members of my family did very well with the whole competition thing. There was a considerable amount of giving up before the competition was over, a general flouting of the (very liberal) rules, loud reminders that it really wasn't ENTIRELY fair that some of the competitors needed flotation devices and should PROBABLY have their own separate junior Olympics, and even an incident of impeding the progress of an opponent. As you see, everyone ended up with at least two medals, and it was a great opportunity for discussion about good sportsmanship etc.

This morning Helena wore this dress that is really a touch too short (it's size 24 months and she is now 42 months) to church because I thought it looked a little Shirley Temple-esque.