Sometimes I Like The Kid Who Doesn't Talk More...

There are some benefits to a kid that doesn't talk. Peace and quiet being two. The Little Person, who may be renamed The One Who Never Shuts Up is literally driving us crazy. As in batshit, I think I might do something bad if you don't go to your grandparents house right now. Thankfully, The Rents are still in town. And when I called my mom to ask her to take The Little Person (I won't rename him just yet), my dad answered. I went through the niceties, how are you, how was your trip (he just came back from seeing my 93 year old grandmother), and then laid it out.

Me

"I just wanted to see how you were doing and whether you could take The Little Person for a while, because he's driving us crazy."

Dad

"What's he doing?"

Me

"Talking non-stop and asking tons of questions (among other more vexing things).

Dad

"Oh, so the normal."

Me

"Yup."

Dad said that he had some work to do, and I thought this, along with my mother not being home (she is the official arranger of plans) was going to be an excuse or delay tactic (as in, why don't you give your mom a call?) But to my surprise, he said he had some work to do, and why didn't I drop The Little Person off at 2:15, 2:30, which was in about a half an hour. Great!

After M was done letting him watch him sand and stain the new wood shelves for the basement I let The Little Person watch an episode of I Spy on the condition that he not talk or I would turn the television off (I figured it was the only way I could cope with the time left until I dropped him off with Pop. He agreed, and to his credit, lasted almost 10 minutes, at which part I reminded him of our deal.

As I was walking out the door to drop him off at The Rents, Lovely neighbor called for a coffee break. She was working from home and needed a bit of a chin wag. So I zoomed over to The rents, disposed of the child and kept her from doing anything productive for a good hour. That, along with the coffee (and said ditching of the child) has restored me to my normal cheery self! Did I mention I've been up since three?

The cool thing is, Lovely Neighbor helped me come up with an idea. We were talking about books, and with my Kindle Ahem problem. I download books constantly, whenever I hear about them, whether it be on NPR, or in O Magazine. I downloaded the Kindle app on my Blackberry and on one of the laptops (we now have three, but that's a whole nother post), so I can read on multiple devices (including my Kindle). Partly this was because my Kindle is Ahem compromised. It works well, but there is a crack or a glitch in the part of the screen where the cursor slides up and down, so I have to guess where the curser is. Usually, I am pretty good at guessing, but it takes some of the fun and convenience out of it (especially downloading items), and today it took me a good fifteen minutes to download The New Yorker. So, not only can I read on multiple devices anywhere and everywhere, but the downloading itself is a lot easier on the BB and laptops.

Anywho, all that is to say that I Like To Read. A Lot. Actually, I'd pretty much rather be by myself reading, or lost in a book, than anything else. Might be something to do with the only child thing, but it's what makes me happy and what calms me down. So we were talking (that is, Lovely Neighbor and I), about how this interest/obsession had never really translated into a career for me. Editors, copy or otherwise don't pick what comes across their desk, and end up reading a lot of crap. She suggested I could write reviews for the local paper, but I don't know if anyone else would care what books I like. But then i thought, what medium allows me to share my thoughts and opinions no matter whether anyone else is interested in them? And it hit me. The internet! I could blog about the books I read (on a separate blog from Sammy Noodles, of course), the books I want to read, the magazines I like and everything that obsesses me about books and reading! So, I may do it. First I have to think of a name. Book Whore?