1776

Today was another hot one, so we spent the day huddled in the bedroom trying to stay cool. You can only spend so much time crammed into one room however before everyone starts to go a little stir crazy. I grew up as an only child, so I've never experienced the type of play that the kids do together. They start (Mia too) by needling each other verbally, then move onto gentle shoves and finally kicks and punches just short of abuse. I've read that it's a normal, healthy thing. They learn how to resolve conflict and also are expressing physical expressions of love in this way. I should mention that all three of them are laughing like hyenas the entire time. However, it makes me nuts! I have to restrain myself from yelling "CUT IT OUT!" every few minutes. To me, it seems like abuse and mean-spiritedness, to them it's a way of releasing steam and learning to deal with each other. I made Jess take them to the library and stuck my nose in a book. Now Molly's watching Harry Potter 3 in the living room, Doogie's reading Pendragon 2 on my bed, and Mia's reading a VeggieTales book in bed to put herself to sleep in bed, and the house is quiet. And tomorrow we begin again.

1776 by David McCullough is an entertaining, intriguing look at the most important year in American history. I'm a big history buff, but mostly English history or Civil War era stuff. I never really paid attention to the American Revolution or the Founding Fathers. To me they all seemed so much larger than life, they didn't seem very interesting. McCullough completely changed my mind. The detail that he gives to the few battles that took place that year and all of the political manuverings is fascinating. His portrait of an undecisive General Washington gives the father of our country clay feet, but it also makes him more human and shows the enormity of the war he won and the decisions he made. Sometimes McCullough seems to go a little overboard in trying to show just how outmanned the Continental Army was, but the diaries andd personal letters he incorporates give the book lots of color and interest. I thoroughly enjoyed this historical book and look forward to reading his presidential biographies.

Next I'll be reading either Climbing Brandon or The Janissary Tree, I can't decide which yet. I just started reading The Story in Which We Find Ourselves by Brian McLaren for my devotional time. I'm hoping it will be more like A New Kind of Christian and less like The Secret Message of Jesus.