My Mother & Anne Shirley

When I was a little girl, I can remember my mom reading to me. We did the usual picture books, of course, but pretty early on, she started reading chapter books as well. I think she wanted me to understand the beauty of words. One of the first books that I remember her reading to me was Anne of Green Gables. I also remember having marathon sessions of the mini-series based on the book that was produced by Kevin Sullivan.

A lot of things from that have stuck with me. My love of red hair, for one. Ever since I've been old enough to do what I want with my hair, there have almost always been at least a few streaks of red in it. Just a random little quirk of mine.

It was this time with my mom that fostered my love of reading. I often feel bad because my younger sister doesn't have as many of these strong memories.

Our mom died in August of 1995 in a car accident. I was 11. My sister wasn't yet 5. Our mother was only 28. I read that book, particularly the last chapters after Anne lost the beloved Matthew, a lot those months after my mom passed.

To this day, when I am feeling particularly low, I pick up one of the Anne books, and not only do I feel like I'm curling up for a chat with an old friend, but I feel closer to my mom too. Maybe it is because I am going to be 28 in just a matter of months, but I want more than ever to forge these types of memories with my own children. I guess that's the reason that Lucy Maud Montgomery's precocious redhead has been so much on my mind of late.

I'm need to get my hands on copies of the movies, but I have the books already. Tomorrow, Kieradyn and I might try out the first chapter tomorrow. Trying to sort out my thoughts, I was inspired to start a Squidoo Lens... something that I thought might help to introduce my 5 year old to the characters that I hope she will grow to love as much as I do. I thought that others might like to see it too. You can visit it HERE.

Feel free to visit my other lenses as well, in case you're curious:

Medieval Weddings Lens

Mobile Text Marketing

Parents.com

I just entered my girl for Parents Magazine's cover contest. Check out her gallery or enter your own kid!

Early Mother's Day Gift

My sister called me up the other night. Now, with her being eighteen with a boyfriend, a job, and an impending high school graduation, she is usually too busy to spare time for her big sister these days. So, it is pretty rare that she calls me just out of the blue. I get a little bummed about it, but I'm glad that she seems to be happy. (You should see the boyfriend in question. The guy has dimples that would make any girl melt!)

Anyway, so she called the other night, telling me right off, "You are going to celebrate Mother's Day on Saturday. Mamaw (We were more or less raised by our grandparents, God bless them.) and I are going to each take one of the kids so that you can go out and do whatever you want for a few hours."

As you can imagine, with a very active three year old and a new baby, the hubby and I haven't gotten much time to do anything together but eat and sleep. So, this was a very endearing offer. In fact, I went to sleep last night all sorts of excited.

I woke up this morning just as excited as Kieradyn was. (She loves her Aunt Mindy, who doesn't mind spoiling her rotten with taking her places and buying her cute clothes.)I got the kids ready and pulled out the make up that has barely seen the light of day since Gideon came home. (All this despite my husband's chuckling. "We're going to a movie. It's going to be DARK..." Men.)

All in all, it was pretty nice. We saw the new Star Trek movie, which I would recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it yet. I'm not a die hard Star Trek fan or anything, but I genuinely enjoyed it. Then, when we went to pick up the kids, we were regaled with tales of what they'd done.

Kieradyn had a busy day of swimsuit and purse shopping, followed up by a visit to the KidsCommons-- home of the giant toilet slide once featured by Jay Leno. ( http://www.kidscommons.org )

It was a nice break from what's become our usual routine. In case I don't get around to posting tomorrow, I hope that all of you other moms have a great Mother's Day!

P.S. Baby Gideon rolled over for the first time today. Now he won't stop! He gets a huge grin whenever we make a big deal out of it and cheer him on.