Five days until Easter!

Today is the first day of our homeschool Spring Break. I have a daunting list of chores for the week, all in an effort to spring clean the house. Not one has been accomplished yet, of course. I did manage to start dusting the bookshelf in my bedroom. As I ran the cloth over my books, my eyes were drawn to two books out of place.

Ahhh, yes. These books. The ones I took out with every intention of reading. They stare at me with an accusing glare. Although they lack the mouth to speak with, they have witnessed my infidelity, my faithlessness.

You see, I am a well-educated woman. I have a BS in Mental Health (someone had to try to understand my family) and a MTS in Theology. As a result of six years of higher education, I have an impressive number of intellectual-looking books. I actually like the books and find their contents interesting. Over the ten years since I received my Master’s, I have added to this collection with additional books on similar topics.

They look nice, but I hardly ever read them. I always mean to. I even get them out, dust them off, look at the contents, and decide what chapters I really want to read. It just never seems to happen.

So, here I sit with the two books I have taken from my shelf - Yves Congar’s I Believe in the Holy Spirit, and a book of Edith Stein’s essays. The Edith Stein was for an article I was researching. Guess that one is on hold. The Congar was “just for fun”. I still hold hopes I will read through these. I mean to. I want to.

However, in the months since I first took these books out, I have managed to read about 10 light romance books, a really hysterical biography, re-read Pride and Prejudice for the 1,000 time, and recently whipped through the entire quartet of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, among others.

A friend loaned me some books last month, all light reading. They were finished in two weeks. She confessed to the same problem. She was an English major (English Lit maybe), a fan of fine reading. Like me, she is reduced to the light and bright. We have one thing in common. We both have young children.

Not that it is entirely their faults, mind you. I also blame Dr. Seuss. I noticed a certain phenomenon when my youngest was a toddler. The more Seuss I read to him, the more I actually started to think in Seussian rhyme. The more rhyme I thought in, the less able I became of reading anything that contained words unable to rhyme with cat, hat, or mat.

Not that rhyme itself is to blame. It is the kids, I’m telling you. Three children and a total of nine years reading books consisting of trite rhyme, one-syllable words, and cartoon characters takes its toll on the intellect. And don’t get me started on chapter books as they get older. Junie B. Jones is great, but Pokemon and Bionicle chapter books make you wish you were undergoing multiple, simultaneous root canals at the dentist’s office.

Just a week or two ago, a friend needed some suggestions for a motto for a kids club. In less than two minutes, I whipped out about 5 different rhyming poems, some of which I sent her. I was embarrassed at the outpouring of Seussian rhyme.

I once came across a paper I wrote in grad school. If my name had not been on it, I would never have known it was mine. It is comforting to know that my brain was once capable of doing such feats. I will cherish the memories fondly.

Well, that is all for now. I have a date with someone who lives in a pineapple under the sea, if ya know what I mean! Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya!