The Tantrum Truth Comes Out

Another Anna story. I can't resist.

Today has been a particularly sensitive day for Anna. She has been freaking out over every little thing and was especially crabby at lunch, in a way I've never really seen her before. She was extremely loud about hating everything on her plate, which is so atypical, and even yelled that she hated tomatoes. What?! This girl will eat everything (I blame this kind of defiant behavior on the negative influence she gets from the other kids at church. :D) She finally calmed down enough to eat everything there, but still.

And then when I told her that she needed to go to the bathroom before her nap, she flipped. Tears, flailing, the whole shebang. I've been trying to teach her how to adjust and how to talk about what's bothering her instead of the instant freak out, since it seems like the tantrums come more and more often these days. So here's how our ensuing dialogue went:

Me: Anna, calm down. Just tell me the problem.
Anna: (tantruming)
Me: Anna, sweetheart, I don't know what's bothering you. I can't understand you when you're crying. Just talk to me so that I can help.
Anna: (tantruming, although simmering down a little)
Me: Anna, what's wrong? Just tell me what's bothering you without crying.
Anna: (in a sad, tearful voice) It's you, Mom. You're bothering me.
Me: (laughing)

That explains so much.

Come again?

Here's one of my favorite Anna stories of late.

A while ago at my parents' house, Anna was playing outside with her cousin Sydnee. Sydnee's older brother Josh went outside to tell Sydnee it was time to go, and Anna beckoned Josh over to the edge of the driveway where she was because she wanted to "show him something." When he got close to the street, he asked her what she wanted to show him. She said, "We have to wait until a car comes."

Uh, what? No, Anna. No we don't.

I have no idea what kind of game she was talking about, but that's not one we play. It simultaneously freaked me out and made me laugh, which is a pretty healthy parental reaction to have, I think.

My top 10 favorite books . . . er, authors

...if you were to ask me today. I love to read, so I think about books a lot. I like to buy books, think about them, look at them, and plan how big my home library will be someday.

And lately, I've been making this list in my head for no particular reason, which makes it a perfect fit for the blog. Random list for no reason.

Though this list could change at any time, here's how I feel about it today. So, in no particular order, my top 10 favorite books/authors:

1. Anna Karenina. This book, though insanely long, is pretty darn amazing. I mean, there's a reason it's considered a classic, if my opinion means anything. Tolstoy is incredibly gifted, weaving meaning and beautiful writing into great storytelling, and I feel like I underlined half the book. Two of my favorite parts: the chapter detailing a horse race that was one of the most vivid, visual reading experiences I've had, and a beautiful section showing one character exhibit true, Christian forgiveness.
2. The Yearling. Though this is considered young adult fiction, I believe, I read this book for the first time only a couple years ago and was quickly caught up in the gripping story. But as soon as I finished it, I realized that it was way out of the ordinary and perhaps even a masterpiece. It quickly made my list of favorites. There are some beautiful, poignant parts in here, too.
3. The Hours. I am a fan of Virginia Woolf, so I was excited to read this book, which is partly about her. How Michael Cunningham weaves the three stories into each other is pretty amazing, but basically I love it because it is just a very well-written book.
4. Pride and Prejudice. I've written about it before, so there's not much more to say here. Love the story, love the writing. Love Jane Austen. Old news, for the blog and the rest of the world.
5. Daniel Martin. This is one book that introduced me to one of my favorite authors, John Fowles. He's amazing, too. I love most of what I have read by him, which is quite a bit. This book is long too, but I just like the way this guy writes.
6. Madeleine L'Engle. I ate up everything this author wrote when I was young. And I mean everything. I read everything they had in the nearest library, I did inter-library loans, and the whole shebang. I loved the Wrinkle in Time series, loved the books about the Austins, and basically everything she has ever written. However, I recently reread A Wrinkle in Time and the second in the series, and I'll admit I wasn't as enthused as I was when I was young. The writing was still good, but it seemed like a better fit for a younger audience. So maybe it's better if they stay in the young adult fiction genre, but I still like them for sentimental reasons.
7. Chaim Potok. Here's another author who has never disappointed. I started with The Chosen and The Promise only a couple years ago, which were excellent, but I've read a few others since then that I have enjoyed almost as much. Excellent, excellent writing. And I loved reading about a religious world that was so different from my own yet still being able to find similarities.
8. Harry Potter. This is totally cheap, but I'm putting it on here anyway. I recently reread books 4 and 5 and I'm partway through 6 again now, and it's just good fun. I can't deny it.
9. Doris Lessing. I first read a short story by this woman when I was in college (To Room Nineteen, which I highly recommend). And since then I have read several books of her short stories and one novel. One of the best living authors, in my opinion, and well-deserving of the 2007 Nobel prize she received for literature.
10. Rosamunde Pilcher. This one is for the less academic crowd as well, but I've read a lot by her and liked them all. She writes very sweet stories — some about love, some about family relationships — but they are so straightforward, so real, and so cozy all at the same time. It says a lot when an author fills you with an intense desire to visit Cornwall and attend a shooting party in Scotland.

So there they are. I just realized half of my list is made up of British authors. Do you think that means anything?

What would make your list of favorites?

An L.A. Minute

Some time ago, both Trevor and I had separate yet stereotypical LA experiences within a few days of each other. It was too serendipitous to avoid writing about.

I had my first celebrity sighting. Remember Jan from The Office? Yes, I ran into Melora Hardin right in Glendale. But the best part is this: I saw her at ... drumroll please ... Jo-Ann Fabrics! Isn't that awesome? She was buying material for a quilt. Ah, when has Jo-Ann's ever let you down?

But Trevor, within a few days of my sighting, witnessed a robbery. Pretty great, huh? I'm not sure if I have all of the details right, but here's how I remember it. As he was walking to his car late one evening after school, he saw some guy walk out of another guy's garage with a table saw, or something. Trevor passed him on the sidewalk, and the thief said, "Hey, how's it going?" Trevor mumbled something in return and then waited until he was out of sight before he knocked on the door and alerted the guy who lived there to the fact that he was just robbed.

Anyway, I thought that was pretty amazing. A celebrity sighting and seeing a robbery take place, up close and personal. Thank you, LA!

I've been a complete slacker.

As Melissa so appropriately pointed out in a recent comment, it is high time for another post. So here is a truckload of pictures from a little jaunt we recently took to San Diego with the extended Banks family. We hit Sea World, the Wild Animal Park, the San Diego Zoo, the pool, and we also did some shopping sans children. It was so fun yet so exhausting, relaxing, and incredibly memorable all at the same time. What a week it was.

Here's the whole crew at Sea World.

These next few were taken on the Sesame Street rides at Sea World. I'll be honest and say that I didn't mind taking Anna on them one bit. Being the youngest of my big family, I feel like I missed out on a few classic kid things because I was probably too young to appreciate them when everyone else in my family was doing it, like how I was 5 when we went to Disneyland. I don't even remember it. So now I get to live out my dream of going on the lame-o kid rides by going with Anna. I enjoyed every minute. And look how much she loved it.

Me, Anna, Trevor's sister Natalie, and Anna's cousin Jedrik. I think this picture gives you a perfect example of how Natalie and I often get mistaken for real-life sisters. People just see a mass of curls and think we're identical. (Also, I LOVE Jedrik's face in this one.)

This time, we were accompanied by Trevor's brother Devan. Gotta love the vomit-inducing tea cup rides.

This needs no explanation.

Trevor's brother Matt, Anna, Trevor's dad Randy, Devan, and Jedrik at the Wild Animal Park. At this point in the day, after trekking across the entire park, we were almost too tired to care that we could see a few giraffes about 6 miles away. But now it seems cool that we were actually that close.

Notice the gorilla to the left of Anna. Not the one in the purple shirt.

At the San Diego Zoo.

I cannot get enough of this picture. We decided to head to the zoo, just the three of us, and we got there at 6 after a long day — only to find out that it closes at 7. We ran like the wind to see as many animals as we could, and I think this picture accurately expresses our fatigue and general indifference at seeing the animals before us.

We took this umbrella stroller wherever we went, but Anna almost never wanted to sit in it. She pushed it everywhere and even harassed a duck or two by chasing them with it, which entertained me to no end.

Awww...

Weird stuff

One of the great mysteries of my life has been this: Don't you find it incredibly weird that there are parts of your own body that you've never seen? Yes, organs and bones to be sure. But there are even parts of my own back that my eyes have never looked at. My own back! I feel like I have a right to know what my own back looks like, but I've never been able to take a really good look at it in all my 27 years.

And you know what else is weird? Tin foil. Isn't it strange that there are companies that manufacture small rolls of extremely thin pieces of metal, and then we buy the rolls at the store and use it to cover food and other things? A thin piece of metal? That's so strange to me.

Annacdotes Part 2

How can you not love this girl?

1. Anna was looking at a book about animals and she pointed to a prairie dog and said, "What is this, Mom? A mini corn dog?" You can tell what she likes to eat for dinner.

2. We were reading yet a different book with animals and Anna said, "Mom, am I an animal?" I said, "Yes, you're a monkey, remember?" Without missing a beat, she said, "Ooh ooh ah ah!" and did some wiggling. My little comedienne. (That's cute and all, but mostly it's just pretty amazing timing for a 2-year-old, don't you think?)

3. Anna and I went on a date last week to McDonalds. Awesome, I know. We ate our nutritious dinner in the play place area next to a window. While she was chewing, she just kept looking around — in awe of her surroundings, I guess. When she realized that she could see her reflection in the window, she immediately opened her mouth so that she could show herself the food she was chewing. Nice. She kept at that for a good 5 minutes. I hope the people coming inside enjoyed the preview of the meal they were about to eat.

4. The last couple mornings when I've gone in to get Anna, she's been on the phone with Robin Hood. She pretends to hold a phone up to her ear and has a fairly normal conversation with him, telling him what I'm doing or what she did yesterday. In the middle, she'll move the "phone" and whisper, "Mom, it's Robin Hood," and then she'll go back to her normal phone voice. Classic. She also has quite the crush on him and has said that he's very handsome and that she's going to marry him. He IS quite a fox...

5. Anna fell down the other day and had a teary moment. After we got it all taken care of, she still had the sniffles for a few minutes. Finally I said, "Is your nose okay? Do you need a tissue?" She said, "Yeah, I just have tears in my nose." Awwww....