The Sleep Saga

I have had several moms ask me this weekend what we were doing for sleep training with Aidan, and since one of the main things that led me try any sleep training at all was reading other friend's stories and seeing what they tried and what their kids "survived," I thought I'd share our story.  So first off, thank you friends who had posted your stories, in the midst of the first day of letting Aidan cry it out a bit I was sitting at the computer watching the clock, re-reading your stories for encouragement!! 

Sleep...that illusive thing that new parents crave and everyone wants to ask you about as if it's a badge of honor that your baby somehow sleeps through the night at 8 weeks verses other babies who still can't do that by age 1.  It's an extremely hotly debated topic online and in sleep books, and every pediatrician you ask has a different view.  No wonder parents are so confused--not only are there so many views, but poor parents have to wade through the information while sleep deprived and groggy! 

It hasn't been a secret, Aidan has been a terrible sleeper from day one.  I think part of that really is due to some early infant health issues that we didn't know about. He came home from the hospital tongue tied, which meant he wasn't able to suck properly so he was literally hungry all the time--but we didn't know this until week 4 of his little life.  We just thought he had colic or tummy troubles.  Once we solved that problem his sleep might have improved a little, but nothing drastic.  Over the spring, his sleep started to get worse again.  By May we were getting up almost every hour, and he was super restless, fussy, and screamed if he had to burp. Eventually we put all the pieces together that he had acid reflux, which of course was causing sleep issues!  Poor baby!  We got him on medication and that definitely helped with the fussing, screaming, burping and spitting up, but it only seemed to moderately help his sleep.  Honestly I think that's because by now he'd had 5 months of waking up almost every hour and was so used to having mom and dad put him back to sleep that he had no idea of how to get himself to sleep.  He is a big sucker...but will not take a pacifier or his thumb, which means he demands Mommy in order to get himself to sleep.  And Mommy gave in.  All night long.  Because that seemed easier than having a middle of the night battle with my 6 month old. 

Over the summer I did what I swore I would never do as a parent and let him start sleeping with me in our bed from whenever he woke up around midnight for the rest of the night.  Which means he could nurse and cat nap all night long and I no longer had to run back and forth to his room all night.  Finally I was feeling a little more rested (even though I was still waking up almost every hour!)  We did this for months.  Oh, and he never napped for longer than 30 minutes at a time.  Ever.  Unless he was really sick.  He was chronically tired, but I had no idea how to help him sleep longer or nap longer.  I read at least 4 sleep books, with very different views on sleep and found myself even more confused.  So I started talking to other moms I trusted to ask what they had done to help their little ones sleep better, and the overwhelming consensus, much to my dismay, was that they had let their babies learn how to cry it out.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much anxiety I had about this concept.  I fought it for months.  Nothing else was working though, I kept thinking he'd get better as he got older, but it had been 9 months and I was never able to leave him for more than about 2 hours because he'd be tired and need to go to sleep but wouldn't do that if I wasn't there.  So in the back of my mind I knew I'd eventually have to let this kid cry a little, the "gentler" methods weren't cutting it and I was exhausted and frustrated all the time. 

My mom was in town this past weekend and she had actually brought it up, saying she'd be there to help and for moral support, but that it might be time...poor Aidan needed more sleep for his little brain to develop (I think babies his age should be getting between 13 and 15 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.  He was at about 10 of very choppy sleep).  I agreed it was time to do something.  There are a couple things I did in advance that really really helped both Aidan and I out in this process.  The biggest is that I actually seriously prayed about this.  I had so much anxiety, and I prayed for God's peace, for his grace, and for me to know with clarity whether or not this was going to be the right thing for my baby and our family.  I know that may sound silly but I had SO much peace all weekend and so much confidence that this was what Aidan needed, and God's grace was everywhere--from how easily Aidan picked up on putting himself to sleep, to having my mom here for moral support.  Another thing I did before hand is that back in July I started helping him get attached to two little blankie/loveys, knowing that at some point he'd have to learn how to soothe himself and would need something comforting.  Every time I nursed him I would hold them next to him, he'd hold on to them and I would place his head on them when he would fall asleep on my shoulder.  Giraffe and Taggie are now a big part of his putting himself to sleep, so I am really glad I started that attachment a few months in advance. 

We also invested in a video baby monitor when he was born, and while it's been helpful up until now, it has been my life line this weekend.  There is NO way I would have been able to do this without being able to see him on the video screen.  I could watch him and literally see he was okay.  He was actually laying down, or he was sucking on his taggie in between fusses.  There were a few times I was about to go in there based on his length of fussing, but when I looked at the monitor I could see that he was actually laying down, holding his giraffe, looking like he was trying so hard to get to sleep, and I knew that me going in there would have started the whole process all over again which is not what we wanted! 

So, with our video monitor in place and him sufficiently attached to his loveys and me sufficiently tired of our existing sleep routine (or non sleep routine), I was ready.  Our plan was to start at bedtime Thursday night, but Thursday afternoon I knew he was tired but wasn't falling asleep while nursing, so, I nursed him for awhile, gave him kisses, told him that Mommy loved him but that he needed to go night night and put him in his crib with his giraffe and his taggie. I walked out as the reality of what just happened to him hit him and a VERY angry scream ensued.  He was NOT a happy camper.  My plan was to go back in every 10 minutes to try and comfort him.  I know some people say "don't pick them up" but I wasn't going to be militant about any of the "don't ever do this..." rules.  So after 10 minutes I went in, picked him up, gave him a hug and tried to hush him a bit.  I told him it was still time to go to sleep and put him back in his crib.  More yelling.  I am actually convinced me going in there made it worse.  So I wasn't too excited about going back in unless it seemed like I really needed to.  After another 15 minutes or so I could still hear him fussing, but my mom said "no look at the monitor, he's doing okay, he's laying down, he's stopped standing up at the side of the crib, he's trying so hard to get to sleep!"  So I decided not to go back in and give him a few more minutes.  She told to me to go walk and get the mail and if he was still fussing when I got back I could go back in (I am SO glad I didn't do this first time by myself!)  I went to get our mail and when I got back he was softly whimpering but looked SO close to sleep that I chose to leave him be.  It took a total of 30 minutes from putting him down to him being asleep, and he only slept for 40 minutes, but he did it!  I was SO proud of him!!

Thursday night I was nursing him to help him relax when he threw up.  A lot.  All over me, the chair, the floor, himself....it was then bath time and needless to say our sleep training was on hold a bit.  He got sick again later in the night, but by Friday morning seemed better.  For both of his naps and bedtime Friday night I nursed him to help him relax and then put him in his bed still awake, with his loveys.  Every time I got the initial angry stand up and scream routine, but it never took him longer than 15 minutes to fall asleep, and he even broke an hour for some of his naps!  Friday night he slept for a few hours, woke up, ate, and then went back to sleep and slept from 1:30 AM until morning!  Saturday night he slept from 7 PM until 7:30 AM just waking up briefly about 10:15 (I didn't feed him, I just went in to hug him and tell him it was still time to sleep--it took him about 10 minutes or so to put himself back to sleep).  Sunday after church I stayed for a meeting and my mom brought him home to feed him lunch and put him down.  She said she tried rocking him for a minute with his loveys but he's never been one to sit still to rock.  So she put him in his crib, told him it was night night time and within 4 minutes he was sound asleep.  He only slept for 30 minutes but he went to bed without mommy! 

Are we sleeping perfectly?  Of course not.  But compared to where we were a week ago (geting up every hour to hour and a half!) he has grown a TON!  Last night he did an 8 hour stretch until 3 AM and then I fed him and he went back to sleep again til morning.  I'm not being militant about any "system" or theory.  I'm not opposed to feeding him once in the night, he is a SUPER active boy who I know burns a ton of calories, and if it seems like he's hungry I don't mind feeding him once, but then he needs to go back to sleep, in his own crib.  Monday he took a 2 hour nap and then an hour and a 1/2 one, but the last 2 days they have been back to 30-40 minutes.  I've left him in there for about 15 minutes after he wakes up to see what he'll do, and today it looked like he was trying SO hard to go back to sleep, but he kept screaming so I finally went in to find a dirty diaper.  Of course, that would have to derail nap time training!  But I've been so thankful for my friend Jean's philosophy that she shared with me months ago....don't stress.  You can always try again at the next nap.  It's a process, and it's going to take awhile. 

Here are a couple last tips or thoughts if you're reading this and thinking about some type of sleep training that I've had over the last 9 months.

• First, if you at all suspect there might be a legitimate medical reason your baby isn't sleeping well, please take care of that first!  Reflux, teething, tummy trouble, being hungry, etc all impact sleep and  some may need some doctor's help before any type of sleep training will be successful.  
• Second, trust your gut as a mom or dad!  You know your little one way better than any sleep experts, so if a particular method doesn't feel right to you, it's okay to not do it just because you read it in some book!  I was SO against crying it out, I thought I could never do it to my baby, until one day I was more okay with it, but I waited until he was 9 months old and I had tried many other things.  And now I'm actually okay with letting him cry because I know he is so capable of putting himself to sleep and for some miraculous reason it is actually working to help him sleep longer.  A lot longer.  
• There is no one way to help your baby sleep.  This worked for us, but there are so many other methods that do work for other babies, just not for our little guy.  

There you have it...that's been our process and story of sleep for the past year.  Obviously it's going to continue to evolve and change as teething happens and growing happens, but that's to be expected.  I'm just so excited I can sleep for a little while, what a gift!!

7 Quick Takes Friday

**1**

It's mommy and baby's first solo weekend!  Daddy is in San Diego at the National Youth Worker's Convention for the weekend, so we have 3 long days together just the two of us.  However, I think I've done a pretty good job of scheduling things for us to be doing each day to break up our time at home together.  Today our new friend Carli is going to join us and we're going to hit up Aidan's little gym for an hour of free play time (which he LOVES, so many fun new things to stimulate him, keep him moving, expose him to new movements and textures and toys, both Charles and I keep saying it's the best money we've spent on him so far!).  Saturday we get to go meet my dear friend Kelli in Santa Monica for a bit, I have not seen her in months, and I can't wait to get over to the coast and catch up!  Sunday I get to have a super amazing high school student over for lunch after church, which makes me so happy :)  So it should be a really good weekend!  Busy days, quiet evenings to read on my own after the little one is in bed for the night and a fresh pan of brownies on my counter for chocolate fixes throughout the weekend. 

**2**

So you all know I love Pinterest.  It's dangerous, but I love it.  Aside from browsing through fun ideas that pop up every day when I log in, getting holiday decorating and baking ideas, and browsing through themes for Aidan's first birthday party (he's having an "A is for Aidan" alphabet themed party by the way!) I've gone searching for some specific things and have loved what I've found.  Here's the round up of my latest Pinterest ideas that have made a huge difference in our home and routines.

This is my bulletin board to-do list.  Since my baby is such a short napper I have learned the hard way that when he goes down I need to be really focused if I want to get anything done.  But that wasn't happening, I was wasting time on Facebook and soon was at the point where I felt like there was quite a bit to do around the house each week, but I wasn't super motivated to do any of it, so I didn't.  Then we hit the weekend and the house was a wreck and I was overwhelmed.  So about two months ago I created a bulletin board to-do list, with each chore on a separate slip of paper (or paint chip in this case) and every Sunday evening I look over the tasks of the week and decide when it makes the most sense to do them based on our schedule.  They get pinned to the appropriate day, and if something changes later in the week, no big deal, I just re-pin it to another day.  This system has been awesome.  It's been two months now and I find it still helps me stay focused on the tasks for the day, plus I just like the pretty bright colors :)  What also is great is that when I find myself starting to get distracted by crumbs on the floor or whatever, I can say "just leave it, tomorrow is vacuuming day, you don't need to worry about it now" which is surprisingly freeing.

Right above my bulletin board is our family menu board, which I still use and love.  I love that I can glance at my kitchen wall and see what is for dinner and what my tasks of that day are.

So I have never minded doing laundry, but what I hate is spending time sorting the clothes first.  It seemed like such a waste of time!  So I found 3 laundry hampers with a removable lining (the lining is actually a laundry bag that comes out) and labeled each one "darks" "lights" and "linens."  Now, when I see that on Wednesday I'm washing a load of darks, I just pull the bag out of the hamper, carry it to our laundry room and it's done.  No more sorting for me!  (Plus carrying a laundry bag and a baby at the same time is WAY easier than carrying a laundry basket and baby at the same time!)

**3**
I was so excited for the fall TV line ups to start.  I'm not a huge TV person, in our house we watch the Today show in the morning and Aidan and I watch Ellen at 4, but other than that it's rarely on.  But I do have a few shows I adore that I've been missing over the summer--mainly Parenthood.  Is anyone else watching Parenthood this season?  Does anyone else cry at every episode??  It is an amazing show, the writers are doing a great job handling issues that every family faces--finances, breast cancer, special needs kids, adoption, and the work vs. home life balance to name a few.  I love this show.  My other new favorite this fall is Go On starring Matthew Perry.  It's funny, sweet, a new charming sit com in my opinion!  My other favorites, Smash and The Biggest Loser don't begin until January.

**4**
Have you checked out the blog How to Talk Evangelical by Addie Zierman?  If you haven't, you need to.  Her writing is amazing.  She's hand's down my new favorite.  Her latest post on Letting Go resonated with me in ways that words haven't in a long time.  Seriously friends, go check her out!

**5**
This is random but I have a new favorite lunch in case anyone needs inspiration.  I've been mixing up a can of light tuna like I would for a sandwich but then have been adding chopped fresh spinach, green onion, bell pepper and tomato and eating it wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla as a tuna wrap.  SO good, I crave them now.

**6**
Mi Madre comes next week!  They are in Iowa celebrating the big birthday weekend at the Backman house this weekend (my sister and both her daughters all have birthdays--the 13th, 15th and 17th of October) and then on Thursday she flies out here for a 4 day weekend.  We haven't had family visit us here since Aidan's baptism in June so I'm ready for some company!

**7**
I am pretending it's fall here in Southern California.  This week we had gorgeous fall weather and even some rain, and it's supposed to be in the 90s again next week.  This kills my northwest soul.  I want to see colors change on trees so badly!  But I can pretend.  So I bought pumpkin spiced chai tea from Trader Joes today and will be enjoying a cup while my child takes his afternoon nap.

7 Quick Takes Friday

I haven't done a 7 Quick Takes Post in awhile, but I have a bit of free time right now and not a ton of inspiration for anything more thought provoking than a general life update...so here you go!

**1**

Why do I have zero energy and inspiration this morning?  Because my husband and I were up every 30-45 minutes last night.  All night.  It was insane.  We think our poor little guy must not have been ready to go off his reflux meds (which we pulled him off this week) because he was exhibiting the same symptoms he did back in May when we put him on the meds...SUPER restless sleep, whimpering in his sleep, crying before burping etc.  SO...the pediatrician is getting a call today asking for another refill of his prescription, looks like he needs a few more months.  It's been two nights now of terrible sleep, I'm not sure how many more we can handle!  

**2**

It's Friday morning.  I love Fridays.  So so much.  We've started being really intentional about keeping Friday as a family sabbath day this fall, after it was months of my husband feeling like he needed to be working 7 days a week to get everything done that was on his plate.  It was killing him, killing our family, and making all of us cranky.  Turns out God instituted the Sabbath because it's a really GOOD thing!  We've fallen into a comfortable routine of me leaving the house first thing to spend a few precious hours alone in my coffee shop haven.  Daddy and baby get time together to play and nap.  In the afternoon we have gone on family adventures--we've been to explore the children's section of a book store, we've been to the Venice Beach Canals, we've been to Ventura so Daddy could surf and Aidan and I could go explore the town...it's been so fun to get out of the valley and go play together.  

**3**

I'm 2 weeks into my next year of life and I'm excited to say I'm on my 3rd book of the year already!  I guess it helps when the first two I picked to read were really great!  I started the year with 7, which I wrote about at length last week and then picked up a fun young adult/children's chapter book The Penderwicks of Gardham Street (a sequel to the book I read last year, The Penderwicks).  I just started our next book club book: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon, and I'm not sure what I think so far...but I'm only on chapter 2 so I suppose I should reserve judgement for awhile!

**4**

We're two meetings into our MOPS year and I'm super excited about what's happening!  It's been an honor to be part of the leadership team this year, to get a front row seat for how God is moving already in the lives of the moms who have been joining us.  We have a ton of new moms attending, and I have loved meeting them and seeing how each of us are walking this parenting journey.  It's been a lot of work, probably more than I expected, but so so worth it!  It's been fun to actually feel like I'm able to participate in ministry again!

**5**

People keep laughing at how much I travel, even with a baby, and I was able to say for a stretch there (okay a 4 week stretch) that I did not have any plane tickets booked to anywhere for once in my life.  Well..not so much anymore!  On Halloween Aidan and I are flying back to the midwest to see my sister's new digs in Storm Lake, Iowa (with a stop over at my parents in Minneapolis).  I can't wait to be in a place where fall exists!  (Although by then it will be almost more wintery!)

**6**

My mom is coming to visit in two weeks, just to play with Aidan and I am SO excited.  No major projects or agendas or anything, just playtime with Grandma :)

**7**

So this was week one of my "7" commitment--to not spend money anywhere except at 7 pre-selected places.  Honestly, it was a piece of cake this week, but I imagine that within the next couple weeks it might get tougher.  It's been really really good though--any time an impulse came up I just said "that's not on your list of 7, you don't need to go buy XYZ, you can go home and make your own coffee or your own sandwich etc."  

And Then What, American Church?

This morning I wanted to share a (lengthy) excerpt from the book I wrote about last week--7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker.  I found myself underlining the beginning of this passage and then kept underlining and then realized I loved this entire section.  I was so challenged by it, so hit by these words.  This week my husband is teaching the confirmation class on "What is the Mission of the Church?" and so we've been talking about that and thinking about that a lot lately and then I came across this.  I'm not going to offer commentary (it's long enough as it is) but I invite you to read her thoughts on the church.  Lets be bold enough to ask ourselves "have we strayed away from the mission of the church?  Are we spending too much time focused on "serving the saved" as she says?"  (Always a tricky, sticky question since it's the "saved" the give the money to keep our churches going...)  I'm not some crazy fanatical person who is criticizing the Church, I just am a reader and lover of powerful words, and these words struck me.  So I wanted to share.  So here's your food for thought this week...

Taken from 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker

"What would the early church think if they walked into some of our buildings today, looked through our church Websites, talked to an average attender?  Would they be so confused?  Would they wonder why we all had empty bedrooms and uneaten food in our trash cans?  Would they regard our hoarded wealth with shock?  Would they observe orphan statistics with disbelief since Christians outnumber orphans 7 to 1?  Would they be stunned most of us don't feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, care for the sick or protect the widow?  Would they see the spending on church buildings and ourselves as extravagantly wasteful while 25,000 people die every day from starvation?  

I think they'd barely recognize us as brothers and sisters.  If we told them church is on Sundays and we have an awesome band, this would be perplexing to them.  I believe we'd receive dumfounded stares if we discussed "church shopping" because enough people don't say hello when we walk in the lobby one hour a week.  If they found out one-sixth of the earth's population claimed to be Christians, I'm not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we're living in excess.  They'd wonder if we had read the Bible or worry it had been tampered with since their time. 

But listen Early Church, we have a monthly event called Mocha Chicks.  We have choir practice every Wednesday.  We organize retreats with door prizes.  We're raising three million dollars for an outdoor ampitheater.  We have catchy T-shirts.  We don't smoke or say the F word.  We go to Bible study every semester.  ("And then what American Church?") Well, we go to another one.  We're learning so much.

I think the early church would cover their heads with ashes and grieve over the dilution of Jesus' beautiful church vision.  We've taken His Plan A for mercy to an injured lost planet and neutered it to a clever sermon series and Stitch-and-Chat in the Fellowship Hall, serving the saved.  If the modern church held to its biblical definition, we would become the answer to all that ails society.  We wouldn't have to baby-talk and cajole and coax people into our sanctuaries through witty mailers and strategic ads; they'd be running to us.  The local church would be the heartbeat of the city, undeniable by our staunchest critics.  

Instead, the American church is dying.  We are losing ground in epic proportions.  Our country is a graveyard of dead and vanishing churches.  We've made it acceptable for people to do nothing and still call themselves Christians, and that anemic vision isn't holding.  

Seven

Has anyone else read the book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker?  This book is kind of un-doing me.  It's amazing.  I'm thinking about it all the time, I'm making my husband engage in long conversations about it while laying in bed, I'm texting him about it during the workday.  And I'm not even finished reading it (according to Kindle I'm 70% done...I don't know what the last 30% holds...probably more un-doing...)

Jen is the wife of a pastor, the mom of 5 kids, bible teacher, speaker and author.  And one day she decided she was overwhelmed with how far from Jesus' commands to live simply, love the poor, give away our possessions, love our neighbor, and take care of His creation they were.  After months of praying, brainstorming, and consulting with close friends, inviting them into this process with her, she came up with the idea of 7.  She chose 7 areas of life: clothing, spending, food, possessions, media, stress and waste and she and her family (to varying degrees) spent one month focused on each one.  Each month they made seven simple choices to simplify life in that area.  For instance, in the possessions month, as a family they gave away seven things a day every day for the 4 weeks.  For the media month, they chose 7 technological items to fast from (texting, internet--except for email as a communication tool--but no facebook!, video games, TV, radio, and two others I'm not remembering right now).  Her book is a very very funny recounting of their experiences each month along with a lot of very challenging thoughts on Jesus, on what he said about living and how he told us to live in this world.  She's hysterical, real, down to earth, and very honest about how hard some of these months were for her (especially the food month where she literally chose only 7 foods to eat all month.  Not 7 meals.  7 foods: eggs, chicken, avocado, sweet potatoes, apples, whole wheat bread, and spinach.  No butter, no condiments, no nothing, just those 7 foods--her kids didn't participate in that month with her and her husband by the way!)

As I read her accounts, I find myself hungering for more simplicity in our own lives.  So much so that I'm enlisting my husband to join me for the month of October on some of our own variations of 7.  No, we're not going to only choose 7 foods to eat, but I am choosing 7 dinners and will make only those 7 meals for the month.  No more spending time doing complicated menu planning or grocery shopping--just 7 favorite family meals for one month.  (for those who are curious, our 7 will be: Turkey Lettuce Wraps, Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs, Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup, Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Pork, BBQ Chicken Quesadillas, one night will be a freezer crock pot meal that is already in my freezer, and our Friday night date night will be a meal from Trader Joes--we love splitting their sushi and salads)  That's it, that's what we're eating this month, menu planning is done.  I know this isn't a revolutionary concept and many families do this, but we never have because I always say I love variety too much.  But I also love the idea of having more time to spend on things other than menu planning and grocery list making.  I am hungry for simplicity.

The other area Jen and her family simplified that has my attention was in regards to spending money.  It was not necessarily the amount of money they were spending each month (although she said she was disgusted at how they nickel and dimed themselves every month--$4 here, $3 there...) but it was more the sheer number of places they spent money.  She went through their credit card bills and counted the number of places that got their money each month, which inspired me to do the same.  It is nuts how many places we spend money that we really don't even think about!  I counted over 20 different vendors on each month's bill for the past couple months.  Her commitment for that month was to choose only 7 places they were allowed to spend money.  Normal bill paying didn't count--so Verizon and the power company still got paid but wasn't one of their 7.  But 7 stores.  That's it.  (Which prompted a hysterical scene when her 7th grader needed a hair cut but super cuts wasn't one of their 7...it involved her husband, a pair of clippers, and a very dramatic display of emotion on the part of her son...)  This was guaranteed to cut down on the frivolous "$3 here, $4 there" spending, and forced them to think through what their needs where and where they met those needs each month.

We've decided to try this.  We'll see how it goes.  We're taking inspiration from the Hatmaker family, we looked at their list of places they chose, and created our own list while laying in bed last night (seriously my husband will be glad when I'm done with this book and I can just let him go to sleep at night!)  Here's our list for the month:

1.  Trader Joes
2.  Sprouts (where I buy my produce and bulk food items like dried beans and quinoa at way less than any other grocery store has it)
3.  Mobile gas station (yup, gotta have a way to fill up the car throughout the month!)
4.  Ralphs (I contemplated not including this since I like Trader Joes and Sprouts way better, but it's literally a block from my house and to not include this seemed like a choice we'd really regret when we run out of milk at 7 AM.)
5.  Target (yes we realize you can buy everything at Target so it seems like a "cheater" choice, but it's on here as a last resort choice--ie: we run out of diapers or we need something for the car or a birthday gift for some upcoming birthdays)
6.  Freebirds Burritos.  Allow me to explain this one!  First, a huge part of my husband's job is meeting people for lunch or grabbing food with youth or volunteers.  To not have a local eating establishment on our list seemed unreasonable.  And second, our child goes to bed at 7, which means I can't leave the house after that usually.  One of the spontaneous dates Charles and I have always loved doing is the 9 PM food run (where we used to go together, but now I sit at home with the babe and he goes...)  So sometimes on days when he literally works a 13 hour day (ie: Sundays....), he'll stop by Freebirds after youth group and bring home chips and queso and we'll debrief the day together as our in home date.  We may be really sick of Freebirds after this month, but we both agreed it had to go on the list!
7.  Gayle's Perks Coffee Shop.  This one was a non-negotiable on my list.  It's a cute local coffee shop about 2 miles from our house, but it is my sanctuary.  I only get to go for about 2 hours each Friday morning when Charles is home with Aidan, but for those 2 hours I get to forget about being a mom, I get to write, I get to sip a latte and savor a yummy crepe for breakfast.  It's my date with myself, and these me-dates make me a way more relaxed Mommy!

There you have it.  Our list of 7.  We'll see how this goes.  We'll see what these choices do to our credit card bill this month, and what it does to our concept of necessities.  If we already have a gift card to somewhere, we are allowed to use that, but we aren't allowed to go over the limit of the card.  No more last minute run to Michaels for some random craft supply I really don't need.  No fast food runs, or trips to Home Goods or Carters or Babies R Us or other stores that sell all kinds of fun things that I'm not really sure I need.  It means Halloween costumes will need to come from our closets or be borrowed or Target if we're really desperate!  As we turn down other opportunities to spend money on things we really don't need, I'm hoping our attitude will be the same as that of Jen's daughter when they were forced to say no to dinner out with friends: "It's okay Mommy, we have a warm house to go home to, and food to eat there, and the people who live on the streets don't have any of those things.  We don't really need to go to a restaurant, it's okay."  Out of the mouths of babes....

Has anyone else read 7?  Has anyone else been inspired by this book to make any changes or simplify various areas of life?  I'd be curious to hear from you....does this sound insane?  A worthless experiment?  A meaningful spiritual discipline?  If anyone wants to join us in this experiment, let me know!

32 Books for my 32nd Year

We'll see if I can manage to read all this before next September with a VERY active little one!  I'm super excited about some of these selections though, and if it takes me longer than a year this time around, oh well, these should be worth it!  Thanks for the recommendations made by many of you!!

Contemporary Fiction:
1.  The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
2.  Sister of my Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
3.  The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian
4.  The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
5.  Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult

Children's & Young Adult Fiction:
6.  Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos
7.  The Seven Wonders of Sassafrass Springs by Betty Birney
8.  The True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick
9.  The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall
10.  Moon Over Manifest by Claire Vanderpool
11.  Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Theology:
12.  Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist (releasing April, 2013)
13.  Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas
14.  Still by Lauren Winner
15.  A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans (releasing Oct. 2012)
16.  7 by Jen Hatmaker

Non Fiction/Parenting:
17.  And Baby Makes Three by John & Julie Gottman
18.  How do you Tuck in a Superhero and Other Delightful Mysteries of Raising Boys by Rachel Balducci
19.  The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
20.  Dinner, a Love Story by Jenny Rosenstarch
21.  Mom Connection: Creating Vibrant Relationships in the Midst of Motherhood by Tracey Bianchi (this year's MOPS theme book)

Book Club Selections:
22.  Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon (October's selection)
23.  Wild by Cheryl Strayed (November's selection)
24.  Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (January's selection)
25.  February's selection (yet to be determined)
26.  March's selection
27.  April's selection
28.  May's selection
29.  June's selection
30.  July's selection
31.  August's selection

Memoirs
32.  Seriously, I'm Kidding by Ellen Degeneres

31 Books for my 31st Year Recap

Here you go fellow readers!  My birthday is coming up this weekend which means it's the end of my yearly challenge, to read one book for every year of my life before my next birthday.  So, here are the 31 books I read this year (well, mostly...) and my thoughts about each.  If you're looking for some new recommendations I hope some of these might jump out to you!  Happy Reading!

Please Read this Book.  Please.  Tattoos on the Heart by Father Greg Boyle  I've known about this book for awhile, and have had a few people tell me I should read it, but it didn't seem like a book I thought I would be interested in.  Catholic Priest reflecting on his ministry to gang members in Los Angeles.  I wasn't sure about this one.  I was wrong...this is a book I wish every person would read, and let it challenge them.  The stories Father G tells are hysterical, heartbreaking, thought provoking, and will begin to tear down some of our assumptions and preconceived ideas of "homies."  He invites us to acknowledge that we as humans have  "forgotten that we belong to each other..." Father G spends this entire book subtly and sometimes not so subtly inviting us to see the value in every soul, to watch what happens when someone finally is told for the first time "you have worth, you have value."  He has spent over 20 years trying to help homies come to see their own sacredness.  He says "the world will throw at us what it will, and we cling to our own sacredness, and nothing can touch us.  But as I mentioned earlier, there is a lethal absence of hope in the gang member.  There is a failure to conjure up the necessary image that can catapult you into your future.  In fact, gang members form an exclusive club of young people who plan their funerals and not their futures."  His ministry and the creation of Homeboy Industries is incredible.  Please add this one to your reading list, I promise you won't be sorry you did!

Might Be One of My New Favorites:  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet by Jamie Ford  I don't entirely know what it was about this book, but I loved it.  I can't tell if it was the story, the characters, the writing style or the setting (my beloved Seattle) that made me devour this story, but I could not put it down.  Set during WWII in the Northwest, it's a Romeo and Juliet story of a Chinese boy who falls in love with a Japanese girl--a girl bound for the internment camps in Idaho during the relocation efforts of that time.  The story takes you back and forth from 1986, when Henry is in his 50s to the war years when he's in 6th grade in short snippets which held my attention throughout.  I understand why this book got such rave reviews with book clubs around the country now, this might be my favorite book I read all year--at least in the fiction category!

Biggest Surprise of the Year:  Ready Player One by Ernest Cline  I am somewhat shocked I liked this book--I was told it was a sci-fi, futuristic book that centered around video games.  And I loved it. Which means Ernest Cline is a genius author and story-creator because I was hooked almost all the way through.  Granted there were times when a video game was being described that I felt my eyes glaze over a bit (mostly because, if you know me, you know that I despise video/computer/xbox/wii games.  Despise them.  Always have).  But on the whole this book is brilliant.  Set in America in 2044 it is part quest story, part love story, part adventure story.  High school senior Wade spends most of his life logged into the virtual world Oasis (he even attends virtual high school).  He's not the only one, most of America does as well since the real world has become such a horrible place to live.  When the uber billionaire creator of Oasis dies, instead of leaving his wealth to a family member, his will reveals the ultimate quest/contest to discover and figure out several riddles/puzzles/video games and the winner will inherit his fortune.  It's been years of people searching the Oasis for any hint of his clues and nothing is turned over.  Until Wade stumbles upon the first clue one day.  From then on life will never be the same for him or his friends who also are seeking the prized "easter egg" hidden somewhere in cyber space.  It's a fascinating look at virtual life verses real life and how relationships are formed in both places.  This was our September book club selection and I am so grateful they picked this because I never would have picked this one up on my own!  Thanks Julie! :)

Will Take You Back to Your Childhood Favorites:  The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdall  My friend Kimberlee is a very gifted writer and author and ... well ... a bit of a self professed children's literature snob. She refuses to allow poor quality kids books in her house, and her blog posts describing such books crack me up.  She also inspires me though, to find great books to read to my kids, and to always make family read aloud time a huge priority in the home.  She has raved about The Penderwicks on her blog more than once and so I decided I needed to see what this book was all about.  Oh my word.  It was fantastic.  It reminded me of every book I loved in my childhood all rolled into one delightful story.  It would be a perfect read aloud for a family with kids who are 6-10...but like Kimberlee says, even kids younger can enjoy this one--even without pictures.  It's going on my "to read as a family" list for sure!  A family of four girls and no mother go on a three week summer vacation with their loveable father and there they encounter a variety of wonderful characters.  Reading this book once again reminded me that reading children's literature is never a waste of time.  Even for grown ups. 

I Admit it, I didn't Finish This: The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss  This was one of those books that I assumed I should read because it is a classic.  Whatever that means.  I am coming to think that sometimes the term "classic" just means "written long ago" and has nothing to do with the quality of writing.  I would look at a book like To Kill a Mockingbird or Uncle Tom's Cabin or The Secret Garden and say "now those are classics--incredible pieces of literature."  My apologies to the family from Switzerland, but unless I am stranded on a desert island and need to know step by step instructions on how to build a bridge or a tree house or kill a variety of animals, I never want to pick this book up again.  I made it over half way through the book when I finally said one day "life is short.  This book is mind-numbing.  I'm moving on."  Long story short--family of 4 boys get shipwrecked onto an island and the father spends the next many years lecturing them on every plant, animal and survival method known to man.  The end.  (Okay, I don't know how it ends, but I stopped caring....)

Already Read it, and Loved it Again: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver  This was our new book club's first book selection and so I reread it this past summer.  I loved it once again--especially Kingsolver's incredible gift of language and words.  She makes you feel like you are in Africa--you can literally taste the sweltering humidity--the oppression of the weather, just waiting for it to break and for rain to fall.  Authors who can transport me to another world so well amaze me.  I will say it was very fun to reread this and then talk about it with a group--things others did not like about this book had never occurred to me, so I very much appreciated hearing new perspectives.  A couple years ago I wrote a reflection on this book for my Company of New Pastor's group, so if you want to read more about this one, you can find that here. 

Also Not My New Favorite: Guide to Childbirth by Ina Mae Gaskin  I was looking for a book about childbirth to read this past fall and since this seems to be everyone's go-to recommendation I decided this must be the best one out there.  I already wrote a post back in November about why I didn't love this book, but in a nutshell I felt like she was really disrespectful towards the medical community in general.  I finished the book believing that if I didn't have my baby at a birthing center with midwives and no drugs then I was somehow less of a woman and was setting my child up for a terrible beginning in life.  Don't get me wrong, she shares some very powerful stories, but as I look back on my birth experience I am even more wary of this book.  I ended up with a c-section and it wouldn't have mattered what kind of birth I would have chosen, Aidan wasn't going to come out the "normal" way.  In fact without some incredibly talented and intelligent doctors and nurses my birth experience could have been a tragedy.  So I fear that some women may read this and assume a hospital birth will be terrible, and that's a message I'm wary of promoting.  Read this book if you'd like, but maybe balance it out with something else too!  

I'd Never Read One of These Before!  Parents Need to Eat Too by Debbie Koenig  I love cookbooks, but I've never read one from cover to cover before--like a novel!  I have now though!  This is a fantastic cookbook and would be a great gift for any new parents.  It's full of recipes broken into categories--meals you can prep in stages throughout the day as your baby takes his various naps, meals you can eat with one hand, meals that require almost no cooking so dad can prep them if dad is a total novice in the kitchen, meals that use the slow cooker, meals you can make in big batches for the freezer, and meals that are supposed to help increase milk supply in breastfeeding moms.  Peppered throughout the recipes are new mom tips, advice, information, and stories.  I loved it and a majority of the meals I've prepared for the past several months have come from these pages.  A great book if you need a new set of recipes!

I Wish This Existed When I was in 6th Grade: The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan  I hang out with a lot of kids pretty often--nieces, a nephew, and many junior and senior high students--this book series (The Percy Jackson series) has been talked about and referenced quite a bit in the past few years.  So I decided to see what all the hype was about.  I was pleasantly surprised--this was a fantastic book.  It reminded me quite a bit of Harry Potter actually--written for the same general age group (7th-10th grades or so) and has similar themes.  Percy finds out he's the son of one of the Greek gods--who are not just myths, they actually exist and live on Mt Olympus--which is now located above New York City.  Percy ends up at summer camp with a bunch of other god's children and he is sent on a dangerous quest to find and return Zeus' lightening bolt which has been stolen.  It's a story of identity, adventure, mythology (you learn a TON about the Greek gods, which would have been so helpful when I studied mythology in junior high!) and friendship.  It's really well written and a lot funnier than I expected it to be.  Pick this up if you have a late elementary school aged child, or if you want to go on a grand adventure yourself!


The Sequel to The Lightening Thief: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan  Riordan pulls out his humorous writing style again in this second book of the Percy Jackson series.  In the Sea of Monsters Percy and friends find their beloved camp being destroyed and end up on another quest to find the golden fleece, which is the one thing that has the power to save the camp.  It is well written, funny, adventurous, and he definitely does a good job making you want to pick up the next one in the series!

Another "Classic": East of Eden by John Steinbeck  I really liked this book, so much more than I was expecting to!  Steinbeck's work tends to be...well...depressing.  Most of his stories take place during the great depression and early 20th century in the Salinas Valley of California (a place I have loved for years and years).  I read a few of his works in high school and sort of liked them, but they weren't my favorite.  Over the years though I have had so many people recommend East of Eden to me that I had to give it a try.  It's a long book, it was a significant undertaking to start it, but I actually really enjoyed this one.  It was a very different tone than most of his others seem to be--much more of a sweeping family drama than a Great Depression story.  The biblical themes and allusions throughout the entire epic novel held my attention, and I enjoyed his creation of the various characters that carried through the story.  I think if I were to recommend Steinbeck to someone, I'd tell them to start here, with a drama that spans generations and decades, and that emphasizes themes of battles of good and evil within ourselves. 

She's Not Just a One-Hit Wonder: Shanghai Girls by Lisa See  Last year I read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by the same author and LOVED it, so this year I dove into Shanghai Girls, another one of her well known books.  I could not put this down.  Something about See's writing style just captivates me.  I never thought I'd care that much for books about life in old China, but I cannot get enough of her writing.  I find myself transported to the scenes she describes, I fall in love with her characters, wanting the best for each of them in their lives, and am fascinated by the culture she brings to life.  Part of me really enjoyed this too because part of it takes place in Los Angeles, in Chinatown, years ago.  It was fun to hear my city described for how it used to be.  Two sisters from a wealthy family in China end up being sold essentially as mail order brides to a family in LA to pay off their father's gambling debt.  They experience life at the Angel Island Immigration station in San Francisco, and then eventually make their way to LA, where the life they had been promised via letters was not exactly what they found.  It's a story of unlikely love, family loyalty, clashes between generations, and scandal that is guaranteed to keep your attention and keep you turning pages.  

 Will Probably Keep You Laughing: Bossypants by Tina Fey

I have never been a huge Saturday Night Live fan, but when Tina Fey began impersonating Sarah Palin 4 years ago during the election season, I paid attention.  I thought she was hysterical--absolutely dead on in some of her impressions and the commentary they wrote for her absolutely cracked me up.  This is her story--told with her usual wit and humor, and it kept my attention throughout most of it.  Since I'm not a big SNL fan, there were parts of it that didn't necessarily keep me interested, but the majority of her book was well worth it.  Her commentary on what the media tells us women are supposed to have and be still makes me laugh.  "Now every girl is expected to have: caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a Californian tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine year old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama and doll tits.  The person closest to achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.  Everyone else is struggling.  Even the yellowhairs who were once on top can now be found squatting to a Rihanna song in a class called Gary's Glutes Camp in attempt to reverse-engineer a butt.  These are dark times."

Most Inspiring and Encouraging: Mother Letters, compiled by Seth and Amber Haines  I honestly don't know how I ran across this e-book (it's only available for e-readers right now) -- probably reading someone's blog somewhere, but I am so glad I stumbled upon this treasure trove of words.  Amber is a stay at home mom and when her kids were very young she experienced what most of us do--discouragement, doubt, confusion, exhaustion.  For Christmas one year Seth put out an announcement somehow online, asking mothers from around the country to write letters to Amber to encourage her.  He was overwhelmed with the response.  They became inundated with letters--mothers sharing their struggles and stories and joys and pain.  Women sharing encouragement and women sharing their humor.  Heartbreaking stories from mothers in difficult seasons, uplifting stories reminding Amber what is truly important in life.  They compiled many of them into this e-reader and published it.  I decided to check it out and think this is a book I might re-read each year, just to keep me focused on what is truly important in mothering.  If you're a mom, or you know a mom, in the trenches raising little ones right now, down load this book for yourself or a friend.  I promise you'll be touched.  "Something happens the moment you become a mother.  The world becomes both more magical and more dangerous.  Your body and your mind seem to be overtaken or, at the least, temporarily occupied by someone else--and you forget the last time you went an hour without being grabbed, pulled, pushed or poked.  And completing a conversation or train of thought becomes as elusive as winning the lottery or a long bath.  It's no wonder you feel a little crazy.  But you're not.  Not really.  You've just joined the ranks of the sane but sleepy, rational but emotional, steady but sensitive women who--no matter their different life situations or brand of crazy but not crazy--call themselves mothers."

Best Historical Fiction: Molokai by Alan Brennert  This was our book club's selection for the month of July, and I am so glad I was introduced to this one!  Alan Brennert is a phenomenal author--so so talented at painting pictures with words, exceptional at crafting a story that one does not want to put down.  Set in Hawaii in the early 20th century and spanning decades to post WWII, Molokai is the story of the leper colony that actually existed on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.  Back then people did not know how leprosy was contracted, they believed it to be highly contagious through casual contact, so if a person in the Hawaiian islands was diagnosed, they were immediately sent to the island of Molokai to live out the rest of their lives there, with a community of other lepers.  Seven year old Rachel is diagnosed with leprosy and is taken from her family and sent to Molokai where she encounters a cast of delightful, eccentric, extremely loving characters who, over the years, become her 'ohana...her family.  This book will make you chuckle and tear up on more than one occasion.  A must read in my opinion!  Thank you Jill!!

The Book that Saved Us:  The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp  We had this book recommended to us by friends a few months before Aidan was born, so I ordered it and we slowly started making our way through it (it's not hard to read at all, we were just reading it aloud together and didn't have much time to do so this past fall with moving twice...!) About a week before Aidan arrived I visited a friend in Thousand Oaks and she happened to have a DVD that goes along with this book--we weren't even aware one such DVD existed!  She insisted we take it home and watch it.  So, the night before my due date, with my mom, husband and I all hanging out wondering when this little person would arrive we popped the DVD in.  Oh my word.  We are grateful we did!  I went into labor late that night after watching this and out came our little high maintenance baby who required a LOT of soothing in his early months.  This book goes over 5 S's of baby soothing (swaddling, swinging motion, side position, sound--white noise--and sucking) and each one of them worked like a charm for Aidan--often he required 4 of the 5.  It's funny how many other friends have read this book and learned the 5 S's and used them with their newborns with great success.  If you are about to have your first baby, you need to read this book!  I promise, it may save you!  

When Your Favorite Blog Becomes a Book: Evolving in Monkey Town by Rachel Held Evans  Okay, she may not be my very favorite blogger, but she's in my top 5 for sure!  Rachel grew up in Dayton, TN, the town made famous by the Scopes Trials (Darwin vs. Creationism).  Her experience with the church was that of pretty extreme fundamentalism growing up, and this is a book of her story--her evolution if you will, to embracing a Christianity that is not quite as black and white as she was always led to believe.  I loved this book.  I love her writing, her story, her honesty, and her ability to be okay with questions.  "Christianity never could have survived the ebb and flow of time, much less its own worldwide expansion, had God not created it with the innate ability to adapt to changing environments."

 My Favorite Baby Sleep Book of the Year: The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley  I really liked this book.  I had read parts of or all of various books on babies and sleep and when I finally stumbled upon this one on a friend's blog, I immediately ordered it.  Even as I read the first chapter I could feel myself relax.  I haven't been interested in letting Aidan just cry it out to sleep yet, I am sure I will get there, but not while he's so little.  This book has great ideas of baby steps and things to work on to help them learn to sleep better without just letting them cry.  It's designed for people who have all kinds of sleeping arrangements and issues--and she deals a lot with breast feeding and co-sleeping training--how to gently help your baby learn to go to sleep without nursing or in their own bed.  She offers a ton of suggestions and then lets you pick and choose to create your own sleep plan for your family.  I love the openness and flexibility she approaches sleep with, stressing how what works for one family won't work for another.  Definitely a great sleep book!

Made Me Super Excited for our Christmas Vacation!  Honolulu by Alan Brennert  After I read Molokai I knew I wanted to pick up Brennert's other book because his writing is just that good.  This is the historical fiction account of Jin, a "picture bride" (think mail order bride) from Korea who lands in Honolulu and comes face to face with a reality that is vastly different than the one she was promised by her husband.  It's her story of strength, community, and tenacity as she is determined to create a life for herself that is wonderful.  The telling of what Hawaii was like around the time the US was acquiring the land is fascinating, and I can't wait to go back to Honolulu this December to see if I see any remnants of the life Brennert described.  This is definitely a great read.

Best Baby Feeding Book:  Child of Mine by Ellyn Satter  This book was given to me by a family friend who is a dietician.  She says this is her gift to every new mom, and it is definitely a great resource!  It is all about babies, kids and feeding them, but she talks about a lot more than just the what and the how.  It's a lot about the relationship between children and food, and how to go about creating a positive foundation for them when it comes to eating.  It is the kind of book you read in stages as your child approaches each new phase of life, and I wish I had read the portion on breast feeding before Aidan's arrival--rather than frantically searching through this book after he arrived and I wondered if there were problems with his feeding!  I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who is about to have a little one! 

Most Intriguing: Songs of the Gorilla Nation by Dawn Prince-Hughes This is a book I never would have picked up on my own, it was our August book club selection, and that's what I love about book clubs--they invite me to read things I normally would not!  This is an autobiography written by a woman who has Aspbergers Syndrome but is not diagnosed until later in life.  It's a fascinating look at what life is like for someone who knows they are different but doesn't understand why.  She describes her thought processes in various parts of her life, and chronicles how she goes about figuring out her diagnosis and then how she copes and goes on to live a very full "normal" life.  One day she was walking through Woodland Park Zoo (yup, it takes place in my beloved Seattle!) and is captivated by the gorillas.  She ends up spending literally thousands of hours sitting on a bench over the next few years watching them interact and live their lives.  The observations, connections, and insights Dawn has into human behavior from watching the gorillas is fascinating.  She ended up learning all about how "normal" humans interact from watching the gorillas interactions and interpreting their behavior.  This might not be my new favorite book but it was really interesting and if you know anyone in your life who does have Aspbergers this would be an extremely helpful read!

Made Me Laugh Out Loud (more than once!): Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott  I'll start out with a warning.  If you have read anything by Anne Lamott and you didn't like it, you won't enjoy this book.  However if you enjoyed her other writing, you'll love this book.  I read this when Aidan was about 6 months old and it was the perfect time to pick this up.  If I had done so before he was born it wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining I am sure!  But once you've walked through the incredible sleep deprivation, the agony of colicky crying, and the diaper blow outs when you're trying to get the kid strapped into his car seat...well you'll appreciate this book!  She tells funny anecdotes and stories about their first year as a mother-son duo, with moments of wisdom and life lessons thrown in.  She's crass, does not censor her language at all, is incredibly vocal about her dislike of republicans, and describes some of the moments of early motherhood so perfectly it's amazing.  

A Beautiful Story from a Beautiful Friend: The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon  This was a gift from my good friend Missy and was one of the first books I read this past year.  I really loved this story.  It's the account of Lynnie, a young woman with a developmental disability and Homan, an African American man who is blind.  They are desperately in love and escape from the institution they are locked away in.  They find refuge in a woman's farmhouse where Lynnie gives birth to a baby girl.  The authorities from the institution are looking for them, and catch Lynnie, but Homan escapes.  Their baby is hidden by the woman at the farmhouse and thus begins the 40 year epic journey of each of these characters.  There are many ups and downs, and some may find parts of this book full of despair, but I found it to be a page turner that absolutely kept my attention as I loved each of these characters!  

Not My New Favorite: The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder by Erin Blakemore This book had so much potential in my mind!  The idea was super creative.  What Blakemore was trying to do was pair female authors with their most well known literary heroines--Jo March, Scout Finch, Laura Ingalls, Scarlet O'Hara etc and discuss the character's central quality or characteristic.  She then tells some of each author's own life story and discusses the connections between their literary characters and their own lives, all the while circling a central theme for each pair.  For instance Anne Shirley's central characteristic is "irrepressible happiness" and Scarlet O'Hara's is "fight."  Parts of each chapter were really interesting, especially some of the author's own stories and how their lives inspired the lives of the characters they created, but on the whole I found the book to be a bit dry, a bit dull.  So out of my list this year, I'm not sure this is one I'd be whole-heartedly recommending.

Loved Her Last Year, Loved Her This Year, Counting the Days Til Book 3: Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist  I'll admit it, I think I have a teensy crush on Shauna Niequist.  I love her books.  I fell in love with her book Bittersweet last year, and then read Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life this year.  What I love about Shauna's books is that each chapter is a stand alone essay on a moment in her life--a conversation, an event, a dinner party, a vacation, a wedding she attended...and she just has this amazing gift of pulling something thoughtful out of the most ordinary moments in life and then writes about them beautifully.  My very favorite chapter in this book is her reflections on being a high school girl's small group leader, and what she learned from being with those girls.  Hearing her describe that is beautiful to me.  This is a long quote (I really wanted to type the whole chapter...so this is me cutting...) but I love this:  "When I think about how God made us to live, when people talk about true community or true intimacy, I think of them, this lovely, bizarre group of teenage girls who came over unannounced and never left when they were supposed to, who let me into their fears and their secrets, and cared about my fears and my secrets.  They loved me with a force that I think only comes with youth, a wide and fierce and expressive force, and I loved them with that same love, because being with them let me live like I was young.  They uncovered something good in me that had started to get crusted over by grown up life and dress pants and mortgage payments.  They taught me more than I ever taught them, and they gave me more than I ever gave them, and the best things they gave to me were ten gorgeous examples and all the permission in the world to love with that wide-open love, unmeasured and uncalculated, like a puppy in a box with all her puppy-friends, right up close to them, feeling warm and safe."  Shauna's new book Bread and Wine: Finding Community and Life Around the Table  comes out in April and is bound to be beautiful--a book of recipes and reflections about family relationships and friendships and the meals that bring us together.  

The Book that Challenged Me and Changed Me: Half the Sky--Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn I think out of all the books I read this year, this is the one that would win "Most Important" to me.  This book matters to our world, and has inspired people to do incredible things to begin addressing the plight of thousands and thousands of women in countries where they have no voice.  The main thesis of this book that the authors put forth (who won the Pulitzer prize for their journalistic work on this book by the way) is that if we can educate a girl, entire societies can change. The United Nations Development Program summed up the research that is mounting worldwide about this as "Woman's empowerment helps raise economic productivity and reduce infant mortality. It contributes to improved health and nutrition. It increases the chances of education for the next generation."  I wrote a lot about this book when I finished reading it last fall, it really impacted me, and if you want to read more of those thoughts you can find them here.  Please add this one to your reading list if you haven't already!  

Definitely Should Have Done This With a Small Group: The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith  I really love Smith's works--I was introduced to his book The Good and Beautiful God a couple years ago and found it to be incredibly impactful for me as I wrestled with my image of God.  I taught a 12 week sunday school class on it last year at our church in seattle for a group of adults and all of them really loved the book too.  This is the second in his trilogy if you will, and really are meant to go through in a small group setting.  I read this on my own and did not get nearly as much out of it as I did the first book which I went through two different times with different groups.  If you're looking for small group ideas, these books would be awesome!

Another Helpful Sleep Book: The Sleep Lady's Good Night Sleep Tight I read a lot of sleep books this year.  I didn't even include them all on this list!  This is one that was given to me by a friend and I really enjoyed.  Aidan was a bit young to really implement many of her ideas when I read the book, and now I'm sleep deprived enough I can't remember much of what she suggested, but it's one I want to pick up again now that he's older.  Her approach is gentle and gradual, and, like the No Cry Sleep Solution, requires diligence from parents as they slowly train their child to sleep on their own.  Another great resource for parents if you're looking for a baby sleep book!

Should be Required Reading in Seminary: The Pastor by Eugene Peterson  I didn't totally know what to expect with this one, but I love Peterson's work and had been eyeing this book for a couple years now.  I'll admit that parts of this book may not have struck me as entirely relevant, but this memoir of Peterson's 30 years in pastoral ministry is exceptionally rich and incredibly profound in many parts.  In a world where so many pastors are concerned with church growth, numbers, being 'relevant' and getting things done, the prophetic voice of Eugene Peterson is needed all the more.  He reminds pastors their job is to listen to Jesus.  To go to scripture on behalf of their congregation week after week, and bring back to them the word of God.  He spends a lot of time talking about the creation of a pastoral identity, something I think is not talked about enough on seminary campuses--what does it mean to be a pastor?  Peterson is a mentor of my favorite pastor, and it was fun reading this book because I kept thinking "oh so that's where Dan gets it!"  If you're in seminary and you haven't read this book, I'd add it to the list! (Not that you need another book to add to a list in seminary....)  

More of a Reference than a "Read Straight Through" book: The Family Nutrition Book by Dr. Bill Sears  I really like the Sears family's books and resources on parenting.  Their Baby Book is my favorite go-to reference book for random things I want to look up, and this book caught my attention at a store one day.  Packed with great nutrition tips and information on anything related to food and nutrition for infants through adolescents, this is a great resource to have on hand.  Like all the rest of their books this one is incredibly easy to read and practical.  

The I'm Only Half-way Done Award: The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman  I haven't finished this book yet, but I will in the next week or so.  I am still not entirely sure what I think of this one yet.  Set in WWII, it's the true story of a couple who ran the Warsaw Zoo when the Germans attacked Poland and devastated it.  They used the zoo to then hide hundreds of Jewish people throughout the Nazi occupation of Poland.  I love that it's a true story, but for some reason I'm having a tough time really getting into this one.  I think it might be the writing style, it's being written almost like it's a report of what happened rather than a story if that makes any sense.  We'll see how the rest of it turns out!