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~ the musings of a left wing left hander with two left feet

If By Yes

Monthly Archives: July 2011

Round 1: In Which Stephenie Meyer Confuses Feminism With Kung Fu.

31 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in TwiBashing

≈ 64 Comments

Tags

books, characters, feminism, Harry Potter, j.k. rowling, literary criticism, literature, protagonists, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, women in fiction

(A note about spoilers: I will keep Harry Potter spoilers to a minimum, only letting go the kind of information that you could pick up from your standard movie trailer and have probably picked up on already, unless you live in a world without other people. Twilight spoilers, on the other hand, abound, because I can’t “spoil” Twilight any more than I can “spoil” a compost heap.)

The main protagonist of Harry Potter is a boy, while the protagonist of Twilight is a girl, so you’d think that Twilight would be more feminist in its message.

But anyone who has read that series would laugh hysterically at the suggestion that it was anything other than unempowering anti-feminist sludge. Well, anyone except the author.

Can you FEEL the girl power?

Stephanie Meyer doesn’t agree with the rest of the Western World that Twilight is sexist codswallop.

Sure, Bella is pretty weak and useless. And sure, Edward tends to make all of the decisions. And yeah, Edward frequently ignores Bella’s preferences (drags her to the car/prom/house/birthday party/altar against her will, hides information that he doesn’t think she should hear, steals the engine out of her car to keep her “safe” from his rival…) in the name of knowing what is best for her.

Well, and ok, she is constantly needing her butt saved by someone, and she does do all the cooking and shopping around her house (because her father, after being a bachelor for 16 years, can’t even cook pasta, apparently). And she does attach all of her life’s value to the presence of a man.

But, Meyer doesn’t understand why we make such a big deal of all that.

Just because she doesn’t do kung fu and she cooks for her father doesn’t make her worthy of that criticism.

Ok, Steph.

Meyer has also pointed out that there are other strong female characters in Twilight other than, er, Bella.

I am all about girl power—look at Alice and Jane if you doubt that.

Okay, let’s run through your other female characters, shall we? We’ll start with Alice and Jane.

Continue reading →

Rowling vs Meyer: As Requested

29 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Shhh, I'm Reading, TwiBashing, Well, That's Just Stupid

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

book reviews, Children's literature, feminism, Harry Potter, literary criticism, literature, sexism, Twilight

   VS   

Much like the Bella Swan vs Jane Eyre post, this is one of those posts that seems (on the surface) to be completely unnecessary.

I might as well make a post about why Saturday is better than Monday, or why music is better than construction noises.

And yet, there IS a need (not the least because people seem interested in it).

Harry Potter and Twilight are often lumped into the same category by two groups of people: People Who Haven’t Read Harry Potter and Idiots.

The reasoning?

  1. JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer are both thirty-something mothers who wrote a story and hit the jackpot.
  2. Neither of them was a professional writer before they hit it big, unlike authors like Stephen King, who carefully carved their way into the writing business short story by short story, edited paper by edited paper.
  3. Both of them got the idea for their story seemingly by divine inspiration: Rowling with a mental image of a boy wizard on a train, and Meyer with a dream about a horny vampire.
  4. Both series deal with fantasy.
  5. Both series are attractive to young readers, and were excellent at getting 12 year olds to turn off their Xboxes for a while.
  6. Both series have spawned a set of hardcore fans who are, quite frankly, a little odd and fanatical (although Harry Potter fans argue that they use much better grammar than “Twihards”).
  7. Both series have spawned extremely popular and high-grossing movies, moving the phenomenon out of the bookstores and deeper into pop culture.

The exterior similarities are such that those who have read neither series tend to view both as pop culture nonsense; so much litarary slush blown far out of proportion to their worth.

These people are only half right.

Twilight is all of that. With writing reminiscent of fan fiction, and less polished than you would find in your standard Harlequin romance, Twilight is slush. I congratulate Stephenie Meyer on her success, but slush it is none the less.

The Harry Potter books, on the other hand, are modern classics which belong on the shelf next to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia. If anything, I find them more entertaining than Tolkien and richer (and less didactic) than Lewis.

The only thing that Stephenie Meyer shares with C.S. Lewis and (sometimes) Tolkien is sexism.

So that will be my focus of my first rant.

“First rant?”

Oh yeah, well, I tried to write a single post about all the ways in which Harry Potter is amazing and Twilight is not, but it was like trying to cram the UNIVERSE into a teaspoon.

This is the best I could do:

[vimeo vimeo.com/26881967]

So… yeah, I’m going to be breaking this up into several rants.

Hope you’re cool with that.

Next: In Which Stephenie Meyer Confuses Feminism With Kung Fu.

No!

28 Thursday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in How is Babby Formed?

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

babies, child development, discipline, no, parenting

I have always been a little disturbed by the fact that understanding the word “no” is listed as a milestone in What To Expect The First Year. Especially since they then qualify it with “but not always obey it”.

First of all, the dog trainer in me says:

If he doesn’t obey the word “no”, then he doesn’t understand the word. 

Second of all, doesn’t it seem sad that “no” is the word of choice? Recognizing his name? Not listed as a milestone. Recognizing the word “yes”? Not listed. Recognizing the word “ball” or “dog” or “milk”? Not listed.

Apparently babies are supposed to live in a world of “no.”

Well, Babby was late to that milestone, because up until recently, he almost never heard the word. If he reached for something he shouldn’t have, I might say “no, honey” absentmindedly as I moved it out of reach, but until he could crawl his opportunites for mischief were so limited that I simply had no need for any kind of discipline.

He recognized his name. He could hand me something if I held out my hand for it. But he hadn’t a clue what the word “no” meant.

But he’s learning it now.

With great power comes great responsibility, and with the ability to crawl comes the beginning of responsibility for one’s actions. When Babby developed his own method of locomotion, I began to enact some basic discipline.

Our very first battle of wills happened at the airport on our way home from Nova Scotia. Waiting at the gate, we put Babby down for a crawl. We decided to make the line where carpet turned to tile flooring a boundary, and if Babby approached it we called “no!”, picked him up, and returned him to our feet.

The great escape: Take 3,354

Of course, he would immediately bee-line for the tiles again, and as soon as he hit the line, we’d call “no!”, pick him up, and return him to our feet.

He thought this was a great game. We didn’t mind. For the first time in his life he was discovering the possibility of resisting our wishes, and it was natural for him to try and test that boundary. Let him learn it now that resistance is futile.

Besides, it’s good exercise for everyone, and it sure keeps him busy!

I don’t know how many times he rampaged towards the tiling only to be cheerily told “no!” and returned to square one.

The kid definitely has a mind of his own, and he thought resisting my will to be HILARIOUS.

But in the end, he began to get bored of crossing the same patch of floor again and again and again and again and again. Finally, he reached the end of the carpet, I called “no!” and stood up from my seat, and he paused. You could see the thought whirling in his tiny brain: “Do I really want to get hauled all the way back there AGAIN?”

processing... processing...

He decided that he would rather explore to the right or left. He crawled away, along the edge of the carpet, and I praised him. He sat up again, grinned at me, and continued his explorations unmolested.

Thus ended Babby’s first lesson in “no”, but not the last.

We had a similar battle of wills at the doctor’s office the other day. Now, though, I only have to do it three or four times before he decides to pause at the threshold of my imposed boundary when I call “no!”, and then decide to explore in a different direction.

He’s learning fast.

That’s the “here’s the rule, don’t cross it” kind of no. I say it quite cheerily (in fact, it often comes out “nope!”). When he hears it he often spends some time figuring out the EXACT boundary. Oh, I can’t touch that thing on the shelf? What about this part of it? No? What about the shelf itself? That’s okay?

It’s not so much that he’s disobeying as exploring the limitations, and I am okay with that.

The other kind of “no” he learned all at once. 

That’s the “STOP!” kind of no.

He was playing with the bottom drawer of his dresser, pulling it open and pushing it closed again with great glee. I was sitting in the rocker and watching, and waiting. The moment I had been worried about arrived: instead of pushing back on the knob that he used to pull the drawer open, he placed his hand on top of the drawer to push it closed.

I jumped up from my chair and said quite harshly, “NO!”

He startled, but it didn’t stay his hand, and the drawer closed on his little fingers.

Now, he doesn’t have much strength, so it just closed on them. When I had whisked them out they weren’t bruised or even pinched. But it still upset him enough to make it memorable for him.

I left him with a friend while PH and I went to see Harry Potter, and the friend remarked on our return that he responded quite well to “no!” when he picked up a computer chord.

Yes, he definitely recognizes urgency, and he responds. Of course, he has no self control yet, so he ends up going back to the cord after a while, but he stops when he hears the word. That’s all I can really ask for at this age, hence, Babby proofing.

But I almost feel safe in saying that he knows what “no” means, now.

Almost.

Hey, boob-lady: LOOK WHAT I'VE GOT!

A Birthday Note From My FIL

26 Tuesday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in I'm Sure This Happens To Everyone..., Perfect Husband, We Are Family

≈ 10 Comments

So, Perfect Husband’s birthday was this weekend, and accordingly, he recieved a card from his parents. The note from my FIL who, as you may remember, is prone to quirky cards, read:

Stay loving and please realize that we loved you so very much when you arrived after we thought we had our family number set. We are grateful that you sneaked in.

…Did he just say “We love you even though you were a mistake”?

Deathly Hallows 2: Actually GOOD!

23 Saturday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Life and Love

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

books, Harry Potter, literature, movies, reviews

THAT is how you make a movie. Thank you, Hollywood, for not sucking so much.

I know you all think I’m a terrible nit-picker (right) and that nothing can please me (wrong), so I’m happy to be able to prove you at least somewhat wrong.

I loved the final movie.

(spoiler alert)

Continue reading →

Image

Everyone watches TV this way.

22 Friday Jul 2011

Tags

babies, baby proofing

So, shortly after we returned from Nova Scotia, a package arrived in the mail.

I had asked my mother to mail us Beloved Dog’s old X-pen, so we could fence off the “entertainment” side of our living room. That whole wall was one big hazard, as has been pointed out by my readers.

It works great. We have the pen set up along that wall and Babby can’t get to the DVDs, or the Nintendos, or the TV, or any of the many wires that run along in there, not to mention the glass shelves of the TV stand. He pulls himself to standing on the fence and hopefully reaches through, but to no avail.

Of course, now our living room looks like this:

Look, it works, ok? Our baby is safe, and so are our possessions. THAT’S THE IMPORTANT THING.

Posted by IfByYes | Filed under How is Babby Formed?, I'm Sure This Happens To Everyone...

≈ 12 Comments

The “Good Eater”: Myth or Reality?

22 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in How is Babby Formed?

≈ 32 Comments

Tags

baby led weaning, child nutrition, healthy meals, nutrition, parenting, picky eating

PH had a softball game yesterday, and as I was standing around chewing a hot dog and handing the onions to my baby, someone commented on the fact that he is a “good eater”.

He really is. So far.

I have never really found anything that Babby doesn’t like, with the exception of some spicy sausage that was a bit too hot for his taste.

The kid eats pickles. And lemons. LEMONS.

You know how, when you are looking at your food and you see the one thing on your plate that you don’t want to eat, you say “I’ll give it to the dog”?

Well, in our house, it’s “let’s give it to the baby.”

Don’t want the zucchini that came in my salad? Babby will eat it.

Don’t want the lemon from my diet coke? Babby will eat it.

Don’t want the yolks from my boiled eggs? Babby will eat them.

Too many sauteed onions on my hot dog? Babby will eat them.

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I assume that his taste buds must not be fully developed, and I know that many kids begin pickiness in toddlerhood, so I’m not ready to gloat over my “good eater” baby yet.

I have to say, though, that I do agree with articles like this, which scold parents for succumbing to their child’s finickiness.

“Sneaking” vegetables into kids food seems to be all the rage these days, and while I agree with Dirt&Noise that it is always good to make all things as healthy as possible, I also agree that if you are always trying to trick your kid into eating healthy, your kid isn’t learning long term habits from it.

When I was in that Post Partum group, a nutritionist came to speak to us. She assurred all of the mothers, some of whom had babies or toddlers who were eating solids, that it was okay if their kid “just wouldn’t eat” certain foods. Then she said something that I have mentally tattoed across my brain for evermore:

It is the PARENT’S responsibility to provide healthy, nutritious, balanced meals at regular intervals. It is the CHILD’S responsibility to eat them.

She went on to say that if a child refuses to eat this or that occasionally, that’s ok. As long as you keep offering it, and as long as you offer other alternatives in the same category at other meals, he’ll be all right.

Forcing a child to eat something he hates won’t help, and neither will giving him something else instead. A child needs to be taught how to take responsibility for his own food choices.

“A child will not allow himself to starve,” she said, “and missing the occasional food group, or entire meal – or even several meals in a row – will not have a serious long term affect on his health. However, making him chicken nuggets when he turns his nose up at the salmon WILL have a long term affect on his eating habits in general, and that’s worse than going hungry now and then.”

Apparently this “eat or don’t, but it’s all your getting” approach even works on hardcore cases.

The Baby Led Weaning book that I bought says very much the same thing. It warns me not to mind if Babby won’t touch his food today, because he’ll very likely eat everything in sight tomorrow. It says that kids rarely eat a balanced meal all in one sitting, but rather balance their own meals by eating a lot of protein today, a lot of vegetables tomorrow, and a lot of grains the day after.

Studies show that when a kid is allowed to pick and choose, he does actually eat vegetables voluntarily. I am to offer him something from each food group each meal, and if he doesn’t want it, then fine. I will do it again next meal, and the next, and he will balance his own meals.

I have definitely found this to be true with Babby. Two days ago he turned his nose up at the egg that I offered him. He nibbled one piece and then deliberately dropped it onto the floor. Today he spent half an hour happily picking at the eggs I gave him.

A few days ago he ignored his vegetables and chowed down on piece after piece of meat. The next day he ignored his meat and gobbled green pepper after green pepper.

Babby is a “good eater”, but not because he eats everything all the time. He is a good eater because he eats something most times and eats most things most of the time.

The first time I gave him potato salad he wouldn’t touch it. The next day I offered him some again and he couldn’t get enough. Is that pickiness? Or just daily variation? I call it variation.

He probably will get pickier as he moves into toddlerhood, but I feel prepared, thanks to my BLW book and that god-sent nutritionist.

I know that I won’t panic when he refuses to eat his dinner, because I will know that he’ll make up for it at breakfast, or lunch, or dinner the next day. I will focus strongly on my responsibility: providing him with healthy and balanced options, and letting him do the rest.

I have heard of some parents who become slaves to their kids’ picky preferences, and it happens out of love. You don’t want your kid to starve, and if he WON’T eat his salmon, maybe you should cook him some chicken nuggets.

Only the nutritionist told me not to, and I won’t.

I don’t agree, though, with people who claim that pickiness is entirely to be blamed on the parent’s feeding methods. Studies have shown that some people (me included) are more sensitive to bitter flavours than others. Those kids are likely to be the picky kids, because stuff just tastes worse to them.

So if your kid is picky, it isn’t your fault.

But it doesn’t follow that your child should have to subsist on cookies and french fries, either. You provide the healthy food, and if they won’t eat, they won’t eat.

I heard a story recently which strengthened my resolve to let Babby be picky if he wants to be, without falling into the trap of rewarding that pickiness.

A friend of mine was out with some friends and their three year old daughter at a fair. The mother asked the child, “what do you want to eat?”

(Open ended question – Danger! Danger!)

The kid said “Pizza!”

There is no pizza at the fair. Hotdogs, burgers, corndogs, mini doughnuts and cotton candy. No pizza.

They told her this, and she threw a tantrum, because she had already gotten it in her head that she wanted pizza. So then she refused to eat anything. The mother became so anxious over her child going hungry that she begged some cookies off of my friend, and plied the child with those.

“Here, honey, will you eat these?”

Really? You’re worried that you kid can’t survive without food for a couple of hours, so you give her sugar cookies? You do know that sugar cookies are not the same as burgers and hotdogs, right?

If the kid isn’t hungry enough to eat non-pizza food, then maybe the kid isn’t hungry enough.

They say that hunger is the best sauce.

When I worked at the service dog school, I can’t tell you how many puppy raisers anxiously told me at turn-in time that the dog was “picky”. I was sometimes given elaborate instructions on what was required to get the dog to eat. THIS kind of food only, he doesn’t like the other kind. Add some gravy. Give him the first few mouthfuls out of your hand. All kinds of nonsense like that.

We didn’t have time to beg Labradors to eat. We put them in the kennel with the others and gave them their daily rations. If they didn’t eat their meal, their kennel mate would.

Pickiness vanished overnight. Within days those “picky” dogs whose puppy raisers had spent months anxiously wheedling and coaxing to eat their meals were gobbling their meals in ten seconds flat.

Yeah, I’m glad that Babby is a “good eater” and I hope he stays that way, but if he doesn’t…

Eat it, or don’t eat, it’s your choice.

I can handle that.

How do you deal with your kid’s pickiness? Was your baby a “good eater” who turned picky, and what did you do?

10 months and not imitating?

21 Thursday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in How is Babby Formed?, Me vs The Sad

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

10 months, babies, baby sign, development, infant development, language, milestones

Some of you will read this and roll their eyes. For those of you who do, please understand: I HAVE AN ANXIETY DISORDER. I worry unnecessarily about things. I’m working on it, really, I am.

Babby is ten and a half months old now. 

I haven’t done a full update, because besides the biting, nothing really amazing has happened since the nine month mark. He was still pointing at everything, pulling himself up, signing for milk constantly, handing me objects, making me bleed and so on.

Yo. Boob lady. Book me.

He is pointing at pictures in books now, and if possible is even more obsessed with them. As soon as I put the book down he is practically throwing it at me with impatient “Ah! Buh!” noises.

So really, I shouldn’t be at all concerned about anything.

But I’m me, so I am.

Here’s the thing: Babby has learned how to wave, which is fun.

But the sign for milk disappeared.

This baby was signing for milk CONSTANTLY. It wasn’t always to get milk. I think he knew it would get my attention.

"MILK NAOW PLZ?"

While we think that to him “milk” and “mommy” were the same thing (since I am just a big booba to him, clearly), he did know what it meant because if I said “milk?” he’d start signing away, and if I signed it back he’d get all excited and start pulling at my shirt.

"BOOOOBS!" - Babby's maniacal response to me signing "milk" a week or so ago..

Then he picked up waving, and now he doesn’t sign for milk at all. 

He doesn’t react if I say the word, he doesn’t react if I sign it at him. If I try to withhold the breast until he signs it (which he was doing with alacrity a week ago) he just stares at me. He is getting very frustrated and starting to scream a lot, because I no longer know what he wants when he gets thirsty.

PH says that regressions happen and the sign will come back. But of course I’m catastrophizing all over the place.

Especially since both signs, the milk and the waving, were captured behaviours. I mean that he happened to make them on his own, and we made a big fuss over it, so he did it again.

They weren’t imitated behaviours.

He doesn’t imitate us if we wave at him, or do other hand motions. He likes the waving thing, but it’s hard to get him to initiate it, because he does it randomly, not when we demonstrate waving or tell him to “say hi!” or “say bye!”

Should he be imitating us by now? He doesn’t imitate facial expressions, or try to mimic the words that we say, either. Meanwhile, an acquaintance on facebook has posted an adorable video of her three month old girl imitating sounds.

He enjoys watching itsy bitsy spider, but he doesn’t try make the motions himself.

He does SOME imitations. Sometimes, if I clap, he’ll clap too. He also watches how we interact with objects and then tries to do it himself.

We just had a fun little session today where I was showing him how to put his block IN a cup, and he was trying to do it too.

He also enjoys the “it’s on Babby’s head!” game, invented by PH which involves (cleverly enough) putting stuff on Babby’s head. When it falls off, he’ll try to put it back on.

So that in itself tells me that I’m being a little crazy. 

But seriously. Where did “milk” go??

My faith in humanity rests on tonight. No pressure, Mankind.

18 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in The House Saga, Well, That's Just Stupid

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

human stupidity, leaky condo, strata

Do you remember this exercise in mass stupidity?

Well, somehow, it’s happening all over again.

As a basic recap, my condo complex is in desperate need of repairs.  There are drainage problems, electrical problems, roofing problems, foundation problems, the windows and patio doors need to be replaced (mine are grayed from captured moisture and my patio door only opens half way), and some of the units are uninhabitable due to mold issues.

Oh, and the sauna has been broken for, like, seven years.

If these issues, totally over 6 million dollars in required repairs, are not addressed, then several things will happen:

a) housing values will continue to decline – already, townhouses in our complex are selling for $50-100,000 less than similar units in nearby complexes.

b) Some units will continue to be uninhabitable due to mould issues, while other units, like mine, will be left with foggy windows, broken patio doors, and rotten fencing (the wooden slats on my fence actually blow in the breeze, like a silent wind chime).

c) Someone will eventually lodge a formal complaint, in which case the government would intervene: we would be declared a “leaky condo”, and all owners would be order to pony up all of the dough immediately. Perfect Husband and I could not afford to do that. We would be forced to foreclose.

So instead, the strata council (owners like ourselves, who have taken over handling the finances, etc) decided last year to propose a levy to cover the most urgent repairs (about half of the total list of issues), in installments over 5 years. So each unit would pay $4,000 a year and the big issues would be resolved.

For some reason, the vote BARELY passed. Because people are morons. 

Still, it passed. We payed our money last October, and major repairs were begun immediately. Already most of the drainage issues have been solved and almost all of the roofs are redone.

Some owners foreclosed because they couldn’t find the 4 grand, other sold, and others just refused to pay.

Then one of the twits got a lawyer. They claimed that his ballot, an absentee ballot, wasn’t counted. They lodged a lawsuit against the strata council.

The strata lawyer replied that he had the sealed envelope of votes, which he had now opened and recounted, and the count came to the same number as before AND OH LOOK, HERE’S THE PLAINTIFF’S BALLOT.

The Plaintiff took it to court anyway.

HE WON.

Not because there was a miscount. No.

It just so happens that a recent court decision regaring union voting methods had just happened, which set a new precedent for voting lawsuits. The judge decided that our vote applied, and so we lost, because our vote wasn’t “secret” enough, because there was no ballot box.

So basically, we lost on a technicality and the plaintiff got REALLY lucky.

The upshot is that we have to do this vote all over again.

The twits (the ringleader of which is a woman with a face like a hatchet, who blew cigarette smoke in my face when I was pregnant after the last meeting, because I politely disagreed with her “let’s fix things with no money” stance) have been papering the neighbourhood with their little newsletters, which claim that the buildings are all totally fine and that the strata council are just fabricating all the issues to make us pay money for no reason.

Sure, that makes sense, considering that being owners as well, they have to pay too, and the money goes into a communal pot, so no individual actually profits off of this.

this is what our windows look like

And this fence looks fiiiiine, right?

Clearly the issues are totally fabricated, yeah.

Revote tonight – PH is over there. Wish us luck. 

Chapter One: One Busy Day

18 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Early Writings By A Child Genius

≈ 7 Comments

The following are excepts from the first chapter of my elementary school masterpiece, Follow the Animals Home. I am sure you will be overawed by my amazing writing ability. By which I mean, my ten year old self almost makes Stephenie Meyer look good.

I have transcribed it exactly as it was written, typos and all. I cannot recreate the MS Write dot matrix printer look of the font, though.

so here's a screen shot.

Valentine had a red fox named Rusty she had acquired on a trip to England one year, a brown and white guinea pig that you won’t hear enough of to get to know (but that is just as well, because all it did was shriek), a border collie named Zippy, her father owned a large black Newfoundland dog called Splash, two cats, a gray tabby and an orange tabby named Cloudy and Marmalade, five horses, a welsh pony and a shetland pony (actually, to be accurate, it was an old one of hers but her family was waiting for her baby brother Mathew to grow old enough to ride it), and her favourite, a young mare that was called Gray Ghost.

Gray Ghost’s mother was an Arab and her father a thoroughbred, who was expecting a happy event; nevertheless, because Valentine loved her, she decided to bring her.

How’s that for a Meyer-worthy run-on sentence? Not to mention a good comma splice. It goes on like that for a while. Then it says,

They had stopped for breakfast at a restaurant and then they got back into the car. Lizzy and Valentine chatted, talking about funny (or gross) experiences at other people’s houses, telling jokes and playing a car game called cattle and cemeteries: when they passed a herd of cattle, the person on that side counted quickly as they passed. The amount they counted was how many points they got (you needed to be honest to play- both Lizzy and Valentine were!) When they passed a cemetery, no matter what side it was on, the person who saw it first yelled “cemetery!” And that person won.

The chapter concludes with:

Although it was August, the nights were cold and the dew plentiful. Lizzy and Valentine sat down on the wet grass.

“What should we do?” asked Lizzy.

“Well we can’t just sit here on drenched grass like total jerks, that’s for sure,” affirmed Valentine.

“Why don’t we plan our day tomorrow?” suggested Lizzy.

“Yeah! Uh let’s see……. I know tomorrow the very first thing we’ll do is wake up!” Lizzy joked. They laughed.

“Yeah, then get dressed and have breakfast….”

“Feed the animals, brush the horses then…” Lizzy trailed off.

“I know!” exclaimed Valentine, “look for orphaned animals!”

“I was just thinking that!” said Lizzy.

“Yeah, right.”

Just then Lizzy came up with a brainwave. “Why don’t we go picking after? That was if we don’t find any animals the berries will soothe our feelings”

“Good idea.” Then they entered the tent and, despite the wet pyjamas, promptly fell asleep. It had been one busy day.

Move over, Ms. Meyer.

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