Book Reviews

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Book Review: Sleep: The Brazelton Way by T. Berry Brazelton and Joshua D. Sparrow

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Sleep is one of those things that I think each family has to figure out for themselves. Hundreds of rigid programs exist, but few (none?) are worth following to the letter. Because every baby is different. Every parent is different. Every situation is different.

I used to think I’d never bring a baby into my own bed. I value the intimacy of sharing a bed with my husband (only) too much.

Then we brought home a preemie who would only sleep on Daniel’s chest or mine. We’d trade off nights, Daniel staying awake on the couch with her on his chest, then me taking a turn. Except we got so exhausted with the routine that we were falling asleep with her on our chests. And whatever your views are on the safety of bed-sharing, there can be no mixed opinions about sofa-sleep sharing. It’s dangerous.

We didn’t feel comfortable with her sharing the same surface. I was pumping and fortifying breastmilk to be fed by bottle at that time – and that thing about exclusively breastfeeding mamas being biologically more in tune with their babies and non-exclusive mamas not as much? There’s good scientific evidence for it – and it held out in our experience. I totally could have rolled over on her. We got a guard rail for the bed and a box for her to sleep in next to me (against the rail). Once we were exclusively at the breast (and Tirzah Mae was growing too large for her box), we tried on the bed directly – and there was never a fear that I’d roll over on her. We were physiologically bound, cycling through sleep together. I was aware of her, yet not losing sleep.

But that didn’t mean I was willing to give up and just be a bed-sharer. At the beginning of March, I made getting her to sleep in her bassinet a goal. It was hard work. No longer right next to each other (I placed the bassinet at the foot of the bed), getting up with her became more disruptive to my sleep. It was easier to nurse and then fall asleep together without having to stay awake to put her back in her bassinet after nighttime feedings.

Then I started reading Sleep: The Brazelton Way. There are plenty of things I’m uncertain about regarding Brazelton’s “method” (he seems to think that spacing out feedings during the day helps a child sleep better at night, which I don’t understand philosophically and don’t really agree with nutritionally), but one thing in the “four month” sleep section ended up being an epiphany to me. Brazelton suggested that parents try “patting” their baby back to sleep during nighttime wakenings, not getting them up to eat. What? I thought. Tirzah Mae might not be hungry, might not need to get out of her bassinet at nighttime? I tested it out, patting her when she awoke during the night.

About three-quarters of the time, patting was enough. She settled back into sleep after minimal fussing – and I could go back to sleep too. The other quarter of the time? If she didn’t settle or started to cry, I got her out and fed her. Sometimes I stayed awake to put her back in the bassinet, sometimes I didn’t. But she was on her way to independent sleep.

**Regular readers will note that Tirzah Mae’s sleep took a turn for the worse at the beginning of April. That was majorly disruptive and she was NOT able to be soothed with patting. Now that she is sleeping better and is in her crib in her own room, she awakens much less frequently but generally needs to be fed at those awakenings.**

I have since finished Brazelton’s short volume (114 pages), in which Brazelton addresses a variety of sleep issues (that we aren’t dealing with).

Do I recommend Brazelton’s sleep program? No, I don’t. But I think I will recommend his book. Because I think that coming up with a sleep program that works for your own family involves collecting ideas and occasionally letting your assumptions be challenged and experimenting to find out what works for you. Brazelton’s book is a generally non-extreme resource for coming up with ideas and challenging assumptions.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Baby Care
Synopsis: Discussion of a baby and young child’s sleep patterns and how parents can deal with common sleep issues.
Recommendation: Useful as a source of ideas, not particularly for a comprehensive “sleep program”.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder

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Who is not familiar with little Laura Ingalls, who lived in a series of little houses? Whose childhood memories don’t include either the series of “Little House” books or the spin-off television series “Little House on the Prairie”?

Our books were blue-clad paperbacks illustrated by Garth Williams. My sister and I adored them, moving the books back and forth through the narrow strip of light shining into our room from the hall light as we read illicitly after bedtime. We loved them so much the spines started breaking and the pages got torn. Occasionally, we’d end up having to wait for the other to finish a volume so we could read it. Eventually, we’d check them out of the library to ensure that there’d always be a copy for both of us. Years later, I’d remember the insufficiency of just one set and would stockpile volumes as I found them at used stores, garage sales, and the library book sale. I left a set at my parents and still have two in my own home.

Laura’s story is a part of my story.

As a child, I was never too much interested in how much of the story was true and how much was invented. I didn’t worry about whether Laura was its true author or whether her daughter Rose wrote her mother’s stories for her. The important thing was that the story was authentic, not that it was true.

Honestly, although I’ve read a fair number of biographies of Wilder and have heard some of the theories, I’ve still never been much concerned with where the Little House books deviate from factual occurences. The books are sold as fiction – I don’t expect them to be completely accurate.

But I was curious when Laura’s heretofore unpublished autobiography Pioneer Girl was published last year. I was eager to hear Laura’s story from an adult perspective, a nonfiction take instead of a fictionalized version, in Laura’s own words instead of mediated by Rose. Having heard that the book was a large one, I figured I’d wait until the holds died down at the library (I don’t relish being forced to finish a book in 14 days, as I would if I requested it while it was new.) But then I read Janet’s review and knew I wanted to read it ASAP. I searched on Amazon, figuring I’d just buy it for myself – but the price put me into shock and I placed a request at my library anyway.

I shouldn’t have been worried about the time. When my request came through, I devoured the 370 pages in 3 days.

If I had been worried that Rose had written the novels for her mother, I wouldn’t be anymore. Laura’s voice is the same. If I had been worried that the novels took liberties with the facts, I wouldn’t be anymore. The story is recognizable from one version to the next. Yes, Laura abbreviated episodes, combined people, and rearranged the timeline somewhat in her novels (as well as leaving out a particularly dark year of the family’s life) – but the episodes are unchanged in essence.

Just the autobiography is worthwhile for fans of the “Little House” series. Reading this adult proto-version of Laura’s story adds depth and flavor to the novels we read as children. But the autobiography isn’t all this volume contains. This was published as an “annotated” autobiography, with at least as many words worth of footnotes as words of autobiography. The editor has commented on the different versions of the stories, on corroborating genealogical and census data, on sources of referenced songs or poems or books.

This is a treasure-trove for Little House fans – a glimpse into how the adult Laura viewed and interpreted her childhood, into how Laura’s authorial voice grew throughout the writing of different editions of Pioneer Girl and into the Little House books, into the reality of pioneer life. Fans should definitely read it.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Autobiography with extensive historical annotations
Synopsis: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s autobiography, written for adults, that she later adapted into the famous “Little House” series for children. This autobiography comes with meticulously researched historical annotations from Pamela Smith Hill of the South Dakota Historical Society.
Recommendation: Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder should definitely read this. If “Little House” didn’t play a role in your childhood, skip this (but get familiar with the Little House books by all means!)

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Lose that Baby Fat! by La Reine Chabut

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Despite ending my pregnancy eight weeks early, I gained significantly more than the recommended amount – at least 50 pounds. Much of it was water weight, which means that, after rigorous diuresing, I returned from the hospital only 8 pounds above my prepregnancy weight. Which perfectly explains why I’m now closer to 18 pounds above my prepregnancy weight.

Well, actuallly, there is an explanation for that. Almost three weeks of bedrest meant a rapid loss of muscle mass, leaving me with a still-voracious appetite (from breastfeeding), but nowhere near as much muscle to use up the calories I’m consuming.

Now, I’m not particularly worried about my weight – I’m still in the healthy range and only a bit above my post-high school norm (I was about 5 pounds lighter than this through college). But I am worried about the loss of muscle mass (and gaining fat mass). Which is why I’ve been making a concerted effort to be active – and to include strength training in my routine. And, of course, this gives me opportunity to read some more books!

Lose that Baby Fat! is supposed to be a month-by-month exercise guide for the first year after having a baby – but I didn’t use it as such. Instead, I worked through the various exercises and routines more quickly (about one month per week) in order to allow me to try and review other books as well. This means that I can’t comment on the effectiveness of the program as written except from a theoretical standpoint – but, actually, there is very little guidance as to how often one is supposed to do the monthly exercises (or whether one is supposed to do anything in addition to them), so I suppose it’d be hard to comment on effectiveness anyway – it will be what you put into it.

As I worked my way through the book, I wrote up comments as seen below.

First Six Weeks: Kegels
Very simple version of Kegels.

Month 2: Walking and Stretching
Do stretches REALLY need to use an exercise ball? I had a hard time balancing well enough to get a good stretch – and nearly all of the stretches could just as easily be done without any equipment at all. (In the author’s defense, it’s easier to balance with tennis shoes on – and I frequently exercise without them.)

Month 3: Abdominals
I like the use of the ball for abdominal exercises like the bicycle and the abdominal crunch – I felt like the ball helped me stay focused (or maybe distracted from the monotony?) and made me less likely to hurt my neck than with the traditional floor exercise. This chapter included a nice range of difficulty, from very easy to quite difficult, perfect for ramping up after a life-experience that rather stretches out those abs :-) (Little complaint here: at the beginning of each chapter the author has a “how you may be feeling” blurb, and this month’s is “Thinking twice about continuing with breastfeeding.” My experience as a WIC dietitian is that women who stick it out to three months very rarely have second thoughts – by then they’ve gotten through the most difficult learning curve and can’t imagine having to wait to mix up a bottle and get it warm before feeding their baby.)

Month 4: Arms and Chest
Pretty standard arm exercises (biceps curls, triceps kickbacks, chest presses) done on the exercise ball with a resistance band. We own an exercise ball, so I did the exercises on it – but I didn’t purchase a resistance band to test these out (I know enough of myself to know that buying a piece of exercise equipment will not motivate me to use it.) Instead, I used the 3 pound weights I already have. All the exercises in this chapter happen to have the resistance working in line with gravity, so no postural changes were required to adapt from one to another. I officially like doing arm exercises on the ball (versus standing or on a bench) – it adds a bit of an ab workout and doesn’t take as much space as a weight bench.

Month 5: Butt
A couple of the exercises involved standing with some part of your body against an exercise ball which is positioned against a wall. Obviously, the author is a fitness-lover rather than a book-lover – she has a room with plenty of wide-open walls. All of my walls are jammed full with either bookshelves or windows. Thankfully, the exercises that she does this with (squats and lunges) can be done just as well without a ball or a wall.

Month 6: Shoulders and Upper Back
This includes four ball and band exercises, half of which require postural modifications to do with free weights (of course, the author doesn’t explain how to do that). Disappointing chapter.

Month 7: Legs
Jumping rope in 30 second intervals. I didn’t do this because I couldn’t be bothered to find my jump rope.

Month 8: Full Body
The first workout that is actually a full workout (as opposed to just a few exercises for a target area). Most of the exercises are duplicates from past chapters – making me wonder if one was really supposed to only be working on the butt in Month 5, for example, instead of incorporating each new monthly set of exercises into a weekly rotation (as I would have assumed).

Month 9: Circuit training
A very short (6 minutes total) but very intense (at least for me) workout with 30 second intervals (Daniel uses a HIIT interval timer on his phone for interval training – and I tried it for this workout, which worked well). This workout uses a coffee table for triceps dips and pushups, but since I don’t have a coffee table, I used a footstool for dips and did girlie pushups straight on the floor. I’m definitely going to have to try this again – it was a good FAST workout.

Month 10: Strength training
These are fairly traditional dumbbell exercises using the exercise ball as a bench.

Month 11: Running
Sorry, even if I did decide to purchase a jogging stroller, you’re not going to get me running. I had enough trouble keeping my bosom controlled before baby and breastfeeding – trying to do it now sounds like a major OUCH!

Conclusion!
If you read through my notes so far, you’ve seen that I had numerous comments regarding equipment use. This book assumes that you have 1) an exercise ball, which is used for almost every exercise, 2) a fitness band, 3) a jump rope, and later on 4) dumbbells and 5) a jogging stroller. I do not feel that any of these are necessary for a good post-pregnancy workout (although having some form of resistance for strength training is worthwhile). I did find that I enjoyed many of the exercises using the ball.

If you have this equipment already, I would recommend this book as a good source for a variety of exercises that can be done using them. If I were to use this book as my complete program, I would plan on doing some sort of aerobic activity (probably walking) at least three times a week and do at least two or three exercises from the current month a couple times a week, adding in a couple exercises from each previous month as well. (It seems crazy to me that the author only puts things together into a full-body workout in month 8 – you’d lose any muscle tone you’d gained in your abs, for example, by then if you hadn’t kept on working with them.)

**Side note: The author knows nothing about nutrition. Disregard anything she says (thankfully, she doesn’t say much.)**

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Post-pregnancy exercise
Synopsis: A month-by-month selection of exercises for the post-pregnancy year.
Recommendation: A good selection of exercises if you already have the equipment (or were already intending to get it). You have to be proactive about setting up your own schedule and making sure you don’t lose gains you’ve made during previous months working on different body parts.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: She is Mine by Stephanie Fast

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Written in the third person, Stephanie Fast’s She is Mine reads like a novel. Written in three parts, it unfolds like a play.

It’s the story of the daughter of a Korean woman and an American serviceman. She never knew her father – he didn’t know her mother was pregnant. She was rejected by her mother’s family, said to have brought dishonor on her family. She was abandoned by her mother.

Five year old Yoon Myoung figures that if she travels along the railroad tracks – the railroad tracks that took her away from her mother – she’ll find her way back, back into her mother’s arms. So she walks the tracks, eating roots of grasses then insects and trapped animals. She steals. She is beaten and chased off. She is abused.

I couldn’t put this book down. The story was so compelling, so well-told. As I turned page after page on horror after horror, I almost forgot that this isn’t a story Fast invented. It’s a story she lived.

She is Mine reads like a novel, unfolds like a play – but it’s really an autobiography.

And while it’s the story of an abandoned child, of unspeakable horrors, it’s also the story of hope. It’s the story of a God who sees sparrows and war-orphans, who weeps when the sparrow falls from the sky and who rescues orphans from pits. It’s the story of a God who sees the outcast and declares “She is Mine”.

She is Mine is told in the third person because, the author tells us: “While this is the story of my life, it differs only in cultural details from the stories of the innumerable nameless and faceless orphans around the world today.”

Reading She is Mine pierced my heart. It undid me. I cried practically from the first page to the last.

I cried because life is precious. People are important. Yet there is so much pain, so much injustice, so much horror in the world. She is Mine didn’t shrink back from sharing that pain, that injustice, that horror.

I might have been tempted to close the book. You may be tempted to not pick it up. We don’t like to see pain, injustice, horror. We like happy tears, not anguished ones. We like to read of the human spirit conquering, not being crushed.

But the pain, the injustice, the horror is not reason to close our eyes, to close the book, to tune out the voices of need.

Jesus didn’t. He saw the pain, the injustice, the horror. And he stepped down into it. He bowed under the yoke, was beaten and defiled. Why? So He could lift us, His people, out.

And He calls His people to do the same.

It would be easier to shut our eyes to the plight of the orphan, to busy ourselves with little petty things. But it is not the way God calls His church to live.

If you will let it, Stephanie Fast’s She is Mine could be a tool God uses to open your eyes to the pain of this world, could be a tool God uses to compel you to step into that pain, could be a tool God uses to lift another out.

Will you read this book? Will you let your heart be moved? Will you let your reading compel you to ask God what you can do? Will you listen and obey when He speaks?

I pray that you will.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: Autobiography
Synopsis: The story of a Korean war-orphan, abandoned, abused, and ultimately accepted.
Recommendation: Everyone should read this book.

I received this book from the author thanks to Carrie’s generosity and passion for this story. All opinions are my own – including the opinion that you should head to Amazon (I don’t get anything from them) and order this book right away.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: 1984 by George Orwell

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Who isn’t familiar with the phrase “Big Brother is always watching”?

It’s a phrase that’s entered into common parlance, quoted by people from all across the political spectrum. Actually, one thing ties together the frequent quoters – they’re generally Chicken Littles.

Okay, okay. That’s maybe a bit extreme. But the doomsday nature of those who quote Orwell’s famous slogan made me apprehensive as I started reading this novel. I continued on with this apprehensiveness for about the first third of the book. I love Orwell’s writing, loved how the story was drawing me in, loved his dystopia. And I thought, “How will I ever be able to discuss this with anyone? This is going to bring every ‘America is going to hell in a handbasket’ out of the woodwork.”

Then the story progressed and I lost myself into it, devouring it in just a few days.

It was an engaging story. I felt for Winston, the main character. I felt betrayed, heartbroken at the twist at the end. I contemplated the dreariness, not just of life under a completely totalitarian regime, but of life without Truth (with a capital T). You see, Winston dreamed of love and of freedom – both wonderful things, bits of eternity set within our heart. But the biggest hole in Winston’s life, the chasm so large he couldn’t even peer into its depths, was his lack of God.

Big Brother wanted to narrow his perspective. They wanted to narrow language so he couldn’t think anything they didn’t want him to think, wanted to narrow his dreams so that he wouldn’t look to anything beyond the now. They wanted to channel all his emotion into one thing and one thing only – love for Big Brother and hate for whoever was the enemy at the time (and had always been the enemy).

In a way, Big Brother succeeded, even while Winston was dreaming of love (and carrying on an affair), even while Winston was dreaming of freedom (and joining a revolutionary society). Winston wasn’t so narrowed that he could not dream of life outside of Big Brother’s control – but he was so narrowed that he never even dreamed of a Life (with a capital L) that could make him free even under Big Brother’s eye.

I’m still apprehensive about discussing 1984, still fear the doomsdayers. Truth is, this nation, just like every other nation has ebbs and flows. Freedom never lasts long, and even while it lasts, it is often more illusory than we make it out to be. And political freedom, as much as I love it and desire it and want to fight for it, is only one small thing.

One can be politically free, can be free from the “thought police”, can be able to live one’s life in peace and still have just as empty a life as Winston Smith. And one can be politically bound, can be under physical and emotional and mental persecution because of one’s beliefs, can be tortured in this life and still be absolutely free.

Because freedom isn’t political, it’s spiritual. And God is bigger than every Big Brother.

That’s what I came out of 1984 with – a conviction that the solution to totalitarianism is not democracy or republicanism (neither in the party sense or the form of government sense), the solution to totalitarianism is Christ.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: Dystopian fiction
Synopsis: Winston Smith dreams of a life outside of Big Brother’s totalitarian regime – and tries find it.
Recommendation: Engaging, thought-provoking, and on every reading list in the country (for good reason).

I read this as a part of Carrie’s Reading to Know Classic Bookclub.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer

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One can’t read A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God without grappling with the question of knowledge of God versus experiencing God. It’s the central theme of the book.

Tozer argues that it is insufficient to simply know about God or to pursue knowledge about God – but that one must pursue God Himself and experiences with God.

I agree.

The difficulty comes in when we start to make one exclusive of the other. When we start to think that pursuing God means not pursuing knowledge of God. When we start thinking that knowing about God precludes experiencing God.

And that’s exactly what Tozer seems to do.

It’s hard for me to put my thoughts about this book into words because my thoughts are so mixed. Certain passages in this book had me nodding my head and saying amen, some even brought tears to my eyes, so true and so profound they were.

“…Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God….

Believing, then, is directing the heart’s attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ (John 1:29) and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives.”

I love it – and Scripture testifies to it.

But the passage I just quoted is a part of a thought experiment in which Tozer asks what an “intelligent, plain man, untaught in the truths of Christianity” would think upon reading the Scriptures. This thought experiment is a part of Tozer’s regular derision of education in the truths of Christianity and of those who seek doctrinal truth.

I despise his derision.

Much of my mixed opinion of this book probably comes from having belonged to churches that belonged to either of these camps. I spent my teenage years in a church that explicitly or implicitly valued experiences with God over knowledge of God. There I saw (and experienced) great passion for God and willingness to do God’s will – coupled with a tendency to be pushed to and fro with every wind and wave of doctrine and to lose faith when experience wasn’t forthcoming. Now, I belong to a church (and more generally, to a doctrinal camp) that explicitly or implicitly values knowledge of God and right theology over experience. Here, I see a great passion to understand the word and to trust what God has spoken – couple with a tendency
to value right thinking over right living and to draw the lines of orthodoxy so narrowly as to exclude most of the Christian world.

Reading The Pursuit of God reminded made to long for and delight in the experience of my youth – but Tozer’s animosity towards training in theology, really towards any Biblical education besides a man and his Bible in a closet, made me thankful to belong to a church and a doctrinal camp that values education.

Because what Tozer misses is that the more you know, the greater you can appreciate. Knowing about justification doesn’t keep you from experiencing a right relationship with God – in fact, it deepens your ability to experience that relationship, because you understand by faith what you don’t always feel. And often, knowing and understanding by faith leads to experiencing.

So, very mixed thoughts and feelings towards this book – so much so that I can’t really write my usual end-of-the-book-review synopsis and recommendation. Sorry!

I read this as a part of Carrie’s Reading to Know Classic Bookclub. To read more thoughts on the book, check out the March summary post.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: I was a Really Good Mom before I had Kids by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile

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Are you tired of scrolling through the Facebook newsfeed and Pinterest front page, feeling more and more like a failure at motherhood? Have playdates become torture as you learn from other mothers yet another thing good mothers simply MUST be doing? Do you wince as you set the store-bought cupcakes you swore you’d never purchase next to another mom’s fancy homemade cookies on the Bible study snack table?

If so, you might find Ashworth and Nobile’s I was a Really Good Mom before I had Kids a helpful perspective-check.

When I first picked up this book, I figured it must be a memoir, full of stories of a mother failing to live up to her expectations. Alas, a memoir it is not – but despite not being what I expected, I enjoyed and appreciated this book.

Ashworth and Nobile found for themselves that motherhood wasn’t at all what they expected, and got tired of feeling so… defeated … as mothers. They didn’t feel at all the happy, perfect, “good” moms that every other woman seemed to be. They wondered if they were the only ones who felt this way – and they set out to find out the truth about those other mothers.

They interviewed hundreds of mothers and discovered that they weren’t the only women who felt like failures as mothers. They discovered that more mothers than not “love their children, but not being mothers” – and they set out to write a book to help women learn to love motherhood as much as they love their children.

Me with book "I was a Good Mom Before I had Kids"

The book goes through a series of steps to help moms do just that: align their expectations with reality, make peace with their choices, lose the judgment, let go of the guilt, communicate with their husbands, take time for themselves, learn to say no, and live in the moment.

Each step has its own chapter, which begins with a tongue in cheek quiz, such as the one that asks you to “rank these questions in order of bitchiness” and offers “That’s so cute – he has Spider-Man shoes and a Spider-Man lunch box. Does he watch a lot of TV?” as one of the options. After each chapter, the authors offer several action items to help mothers work on the topic broached by that chapter.

While the general concept of this book is not new (there are certainly dozens if not hundreds of books and articles and blog posts on the same subject), I feel like the authors did a good job at creating balance within their book. It seems to me that articles I’ve read in this category tend to fall into two different camps: the you’ve-got-to-take-care-of-yourself camp and the you’ve-got-to-lose-yourself-in-your-child camp.

The you’ve-got-to-take-care-of-yourself camp elaborates a series of self-care rituals that mothers ought to engage in so as not to become bitter over motherhood. Mothers should take time to go to the spa to get a massage or their nails done. They should work out daily. They should eat healthy. These articles tell moms that they need to do these things for themselves – and for their kids. Because a mom who doesn’t take care of herself isn’t good for her kids. The authors of this book discuss the need for mothers to take time for themselves (and for the same reason), but instead of giving another list of things mothers ought to do (and therefore feel like failures for not doing), they encourage mothers to think through and find out what things make them into “a person they enjoy being with”. The authors acknowledge that motherhood may change the things that women find enjoyable – and that’s OKAY. Maybe crafts used to energize you, but now facing the prospect of cleaning up after crafting makes you cringe. Maybe you used to think seeing movies in a theatre was pointless – but now the thought of being able to be in a dark room with no one talking to you is your idea of bliss. That’s OKAY. The important thing is finding out what makes you tick where you’re at now, and finding some way of incorporating that into your life.

In contrast, the you’ve-got-to-lose-yourself-in-your-child camp argues that mothers spend way too much time worrying about the laundry and the dishes and the myriads of things that need to get done – and says that what mothers really need to do is recognize that their children have only one childhood and it should be spent cuddling/playing/talking/reading/exploring with their mothers. So moms should just be okay with the dishes and laundry not being done, meals not being prepared, errands never run, etc. This perspective also tends to make moms feel like failures – because, try as they like, they still can’t feel good about mountains of laundry and unwashed dishes and unmade meals. The authors of I was a good mom address this topic as well – “live in the moment” and “align your expectations” – but they do so in a way that helps moms think through what really is important to them and in a way that acknowledges that mothers will never be able to completely “drop everything.”

In short, I highly recommend this book to mothers who feel overwhelmed by the task of mothering. While I’ve not yet dealt with many of the frustrations discussed in this title, I’ve certainly discovered the need to adjust my expectations since becoming a mother.

As a short caveat, this book is not written from a Christian perspective and there is some inappropriate language found within. Additionally, while the authors do a decent job of encouraging women to understand their husbands’ perspectives in parenting and to communicate well with their husbands, some of the quotes from the women they interviewed convey highly unhealthy attitudes towards husbands.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Mothering
Synopsis: The authors encourage moms to learn to enjoy motherhood by letting go of unrealistic expectations and developing healthy attitudes and behaviors for mothering.
Recommendation: Recommended to mothers who are struggling with mommy guilt, fighting in the mommy wars (or wishing they could get out of the crossfire), or who are just plain overwhelmed by mothering.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The VBAC Companion by Diana Korte

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I’m sure it will come as a total shock to my readers – but I’m hoping for a vaginal birth the next time around.

I know, I know. You’re having a hard time wrapping your head around it.

Truth is, even if I weren’t all about natural childbirth and minimal interventions and maximizing chances at successfully establishing breastfeeding (all good cases for vaginal birth after c-section, or VBAC), I want to have lots of kids. And you can only have so many repeat cesareans.

So I’m planning on doing everything I can to work toward that end.

Diana Korte’s The VBAC Companion is the first resource I’ve picked up – and it’s a pretty good one. It outlines the case for VBAC, as well as the risks associated with it, and then goes right into how to plan for your VBAC.

The bulk of the book consists of finding a medical professional and a birthing location that are supportive of VBAC.

Turns out, the most important thing you can do to ensure success of your VBAC attempt is to have supportive attendants. Having a doctor or midwife who believes in VBAC, who has practices that support successful laboring (versus “trials of labor” that root against a woman), and who has successfully helped women have VBACs is HUGE.

The final part of the book was about laboring – mostly the general stuff you’d learn in any childbirth preparation class. How to manage pain and keep labor moving by moving around and assuming different positions. Which interventions help a woman to labor well and which slow or stop labor. Helpful things, but not ones unique to VBAC.

This was a good book on preparing for a VBAC. I would imagine that most women who want to attempt a VBAC will find it very useful.

I didn’t.

You see, I was hoping for something more. I was hoping for guidelines for physical fitness, exercises to do. I was hoping for weight gain guidelines. I was hoping for more specific laboring advice. Not that the other stuff isn’t important. I know the stuff this book discussed is the most important stuff for ensuring success. It’s just that I’m blessed to already have two extremely supportive attendants. I know that when I try again, my midwife and my OB are both rooting for me and are going to do everything in their power to help me to be successful.

So, I keep searching for that other stuff (I have a feeling I might not be able to find it in a book – so I’ve got a meeting scheduled with my midwife to talk about what she’s found to be helpful with other women).

Meanwhile, I can wholeheartedly recommend this book as a resource for other women who are hoping for a VBAC, especially for those who don’t know their OB, doctor, or midwife’s track record on VBAC and need help choosing a supportive professional.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Pregnancy/Childbirth
Synopsis: Rationale for choosing a vaginal birth after cesarean and how to plan for a successful VBAC.
Recommendation: If you are interested in trying for a VBAC, this is a good resource.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

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“It’s a good book?” Daniel asks me, as the dozenth chuckle emerges from my lips. He’s stopped asking me what’s so funny, as the humor is lost without context.

Yes, it’s a good book. It’s a reader’s book. Full of references to other stories, calls to tropes, twists on standard tales. It’s a reflective book without being self-conscious.

I laughed. By the end, I cried.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is about a bookseller, a widower with defined literary tastes who rather wants to run his bookstore to the ground while killing himself with drink. Now that Nic is dead, what has he to live for?

But a valuable book goes missing while he’s passed out drunk one night – and now his “insurance” is gone. It takes a stolen book, an unlikely friendship, and an abandoned child – but slowly, A.J. Fikry’s life starts to take on meaning again.

Each chapter opens with a book review of sorts: a blurb A.J. wrote about a book or a short story, hinting at what made that story important to him and worth reading to others. While I’d read only a few of the highlighted stories, Fikry’s descriptions were rich – and the connection between the stories he read and the stories he lived most interesting.

“It is so simple.
Maya…I have figured it all out–
The words you can’t find, you borrow.

We read to know we’re not alone.
We read because we are alone.
We read and we are not alone.
We are not alone.

My life is in these books–
Read these and know my heart.

We are not quite novels–
We are not quite short stories–
In the end, we are collected works.

This novel is sure to resonate with other readers as it resonated with me. I recommend it.

My recommendation is not without caveats, however. My readers will want to be aware that this book contains a few expletives and several instances of non-explicit sexual immorality.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: Literary fiction
Synopsis: Widowed bookseller A.J. Fikry is ready to give up on life when a stolen book, an unlikely friendship, and an abandoned child change his course completely.
Recommendation: A book lovers book – if your life has been changed by the stories you’ve read (and vice versa), you’re likely to enjoy this book.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Post-Pregnancy Handbook by Sylvia Brown and Mary Dowd Struck

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Theoretically, having a book about the after-effects of pregnancy on a woman’s body, mind, emotions, and relationships is a great idea. The authors are right that pregnancy books and childbirth courses spend little time on the topic, and that women might be likely to feel that as soon as they deliver focus shifts to the baby and they get “left behind” to pick up the pieces of themselves without support.

So the idea behind The Post-Pregnancy Handbook is a great one. Unfortunately, the execution was only ho-hum.

When I started reading, I was shocked by the abrupt nature of the first chapter, detailing a variety of complementary and alternative medical approaches without so much as a paragraph of introduction. It was only after I’d started in what looked to be the second chapter that I realized that first section was meant to be a foreword of sorts.

The first non-chapter was a harbinger of what was to come. While there was a fair bit of science in the explanations of what happens to a woman’s body after birth, the proposed solution was often a method with only the most tenuous scientific grounds. When the book addressed emotional or relational topics, it generally couched them in Freudian terms that this reader, at least, found off-putting.

Additionally, with over 300 pages, this book just never ended. And recognize – this is coming from a woman who loves to read and loves to learn about the minute details of the human body. I took human anatomy in college for fun. So my guess is that the average reader would find this book overwhelmingly onerous.

And…to pile on complaints: the authors assume the mother who delivered vaginally will have a episiotomy. They are eternally ambiguous about the appropriate length of breastfeeding, sometimes seeming to encourage a year, other times three months. Their breastfeeding advice was only halfway correct and some of it rather inclined to sabotage successful breastfeeding. They encourage women to wait way too long to begin an exercise program following delivery. And, there is no concluding chapter (I rather like books to have a beginning, a middle, and an end – this had only middle.)

So, this book was a good idea poorly executed. I don’t recommend it.

Rating: 1 star
Category: Health
Synopsis: The authors explain what happens to a woman after pregnancy and how to manage common physical, mental, emotional, and relational difficulties.
Recommendation: A good idea poorly executed