Mommy Brain

I’ve been doing a lot of reviews lately, and I thought it would be good to make clear my policy concerning book and movie reviews. I only agree to review products that I have a good chance of enjoying. I will not accept a movie or book that I believe I will not like. However, I will be completely honest in my review. I will not recommend a movie or book if it isn’t well-written or -produced, if it includes inappropriate matieral, or if I just plain didn’t like it. I figure I’ll be open about what I think and if everyone stops sending me books or movies to review, so be it. So if you see a positive review on my site, it is because I truly think the movie or book is worth your time. I also review a lot of books I read that I either purchase for myself or get from the public library, so I will always give you a heads-up at the beginning of the review if the book or movie was provided to me by someone else.

It’s been a while since I received a product to review that I didn’t like, so in case I’ve come across as someone who’s willing to say something nice about anything I’m given for free, you can check out these reviews:

The Barbie Diaries
Help, Mom! Hollywood’s in My Hamper
Prime
Help, Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!

(Curious George was provided to me by Special Ops Media for purpose of review.)

If you’re tired of “family” movies that are full of innuendo and crude humor that are intended for adults and that you have to try to gloss over or explain away to your perceptive children, you should watch this movie. It is full of true humor that doesn’t rely on bodily functions or “in-jokes”.

Ted, aka The Man in the Yellow Hat, works for a museum – the dry, crusty, don’t touch the exhibits kind of museum. The museum is in financial distress, and in an attempt to bring a huge exhibit, Ted ventures into the jungle to find a lost statue.

Enter George, the cute, curious little monkey who takes Ted’s hat to use for a game of peek-a-boo. George follows Ted back to New York, and the fun begins.

Everyone loved this movie – from 4-year-old Josiah to 9-year-old Natalie to 33-year-old me, and everyone in between. I love to hear my children laugh, and the first few scenes of George in the jungle blowing bubbles and playing with the hippos had Josiah bending over with his adorable little belly laugh. Throw in some terrific songs by Jack Johnson, and you have a close-to-perfect family movie.

Favorite part: at the opening of the new, improved, hands-on museum, Ted says (paraphrased from my faulty memory), “Anyone can memorize facts and figures. If you really want to learn something, go out and experience it. Let your curiosity be your guide.” Great plug for homeschooling, in my opinion!

The DVD has a lot of extras, including games and activities for the kids and a How to Draw George tutorial.

You can watch a trailer of the movie here, and purchase your own copy here.

….my last posted sounded like I believe my daughter is perfect and the neighbor’s daughter is evil incarnate – I don’t. Natalie is a nice girl, but she isn’t perfect, and I don’t want to come off as one of those moms who thinks the other kids are always at fault. I realize that all kids can be mean at times – Natalie picks on her brothers like the best (or worst) of them – but where this girl is concerned, Natalie always seems to get the worst part of the deal. Anyway, enough about that. I feel better for having got it off my chest.

Busy day! But it’s still Friday here on the west coast for a few more hours, so I guess I’m not too late. Our van was in the shop today, but the repair only cost $59, which was a huge relief! I was half-way expecting one of those oh-by-the-way-the-transmission-is-going-and-it’s-going-to-cost-at-least-a-thousand-dollars-to-fix calls.

Before I get to the announcement and venting, I have a few links to share:

This article at Christianity Today made me wonder how we relate to non-Christians. Do we approach them as the enemy?

This post at Antique Mommy‘s about the myth that older-age parents have more patience made me laugh. Hard.

This comic also tickled my funny bone.

Now, the big announcement:

I have two more Barbie in the Twelve Dancing Princesses DVDs for giveaway! My daughter drew two more names from the commenters on this post, and the winners are….

Gem

…and…

Scrappitydoodah!

Congratulations, ladies! Check the e-mail that you use when commenting for a message from me so I can get your mailing address.

Also, a message for Pennsylvania Progressive: I haven’t received a reply to my e-mail for your mailing address. Please respond by Sunday night or I’ll have to draw another name for your copy of the DVD.

Now for the venting. I am having a very hard time being charitable and Christian toward our neighbors. My daughter Natalie is 9 and likes to play with their daughter (I”ll call her K), who is almost 11. I don’t really like it, but it doesn’t happen very often, so I haven’t made a big deal about it. The age difference has always been a touchy issue, and now that K is in 5th grade in public school, where kids seem to mature so much faster, it’s becoming a huge problem.

Nan was outside playing with K and two other neighborhood girls this evening after dinner. She came running in, upset, because K saw her undershirt strap (which Nan wears when it’s chilly out) peeking out from her shirt and asked if she was wearing a bra. Natalie responded with, “No, I don’t need a bra yet.” K said, “Well, I started wearing a training bra when I was seven because it makes you develop breasts faster.” So Natalie came in to ask us if this is true. This is the last thing I want my 9 year old daughter thinking. She’s 9! She shouldn’t have to worry about things like this. So, I responded with, “No, your body will develop when it’s the right time for you, and nothing you do will make it go any faster.”

She was satisified with my answer and went back outside and told K what we said. K responded with, “Well, that’s not what my doctor and the news says!” Now, K has lied to Natalie before, so this is nothing new. Natalie comes in, crying, because now K is mad at her and is stomping in the house, refusing to play any longer.

We comforted Natalie and told her not to worry about it, as long as she knew what was true. Natalie went back outside to play, only to have one of the other little girls tell her that K said that her mom thought we were (expletive)s and that Natalie stole things from her all the time.

This neighbor is nice and friendly to my face, but I’ve always wonder what her real feelings were. She speaks negatively about most of the other people in our neighborhood, and I always try to change the subject and not listen to it. But I’ve seen her turn around and be sweet as sugar to the very same people she was speaking so horribly about. I take what she says with a grain of salt. But now my daughter is upset and crying in my living room because of it. Natalie was more upset with the fact that K’s mom had called us a bad word than the fact that she accused Natalie of stealing.

Part of me wants to march next door and let the old Mama-bear out, and the other part of me wants to move to the country where we have no neighbors and don’t have to deal with this garbage anymore. Why do people have to be so mean? We homeschool, so I really thought we could avoid stuff like this. It just makes my heart break to have my daughter sobbing in my arms because her feelings are so hurt. When I ask her why she didn’t stand up for herself, she said she’s too worried about hurting K’s feelings! She’s such a sweet girl, who would never purposely hurt someone, and I just want to put a wall around her heart and keep her from experiencing anything like this. But I can’t. And that makes me feel so helpless.

Well, I hate to end on such a downer. I do have a review of Curious George to do, so the next post should be happier. Have a good weekend.

In the last couple days, I have become aware of a site called Bitacle Blog Search Engine. They call themselves a blog search engine, but what they are really doing is stealing complete posts from people’s RSS feeds and re-posting them on their site. They have many posts of mine already up.

I e-mailed Homeschool Journal administrator Andrea, and she installed a new plug-in that automatically puts a copyright on each of my posts on my RSS feed. I encourage all of you here at Homeschool Journal to go into your Plug-ins page and activate this feature. The copyright doesn’t show up on your blog page, but it does on your RSS feed, which is where people like this are stealing the posts from. For anyone who isn’t on Homeschool Journal, you should put a copyright on your site yourself.

I’m hoping that by posting this and drawing attention to the fact that what they are doing is copyright infringement, maybe they will knock it off. I also e-mailed Google about the fact that this site is using Google ads on stolen copyrighted material.

Andrea also posted about this at her site. Their help page states that if you don’t want your blog included, you should stop publishing an RSS feed. If you do that, nobody can read your blog through Bloglines or any other feed service. Just a heads up – do what you can.

Remember that ambitious list of reading I planned for the autumn? Well, here’s my progress so far.

Finished:
~Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church by Phillip Yancey
~Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
~Trinity by Leon Uris

Started:
~Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books by Maureen Corrigan
~The Collected Works of Emily Dickinson
~Persuasion by Jane Austen

Since September is almost over, I am left to assume that I will not come close to completing my list. But that’s okay – I’ll have fun trying.

I had forgotten how heartbreaking Trinity is. It is beautiful and sad and leaves me melancholy.

Long Dan Sweeney had steeled himself beyond his capacity to make the trip without being a burden but the pain was destroying him before our eyes. “Lads,” he rasped, “and lassie, I never thought I’d live to see the day that twenty Irishmen would ever prepare such a mission without creating utter chaos. But…here we are…and there it is…over there. We don’t care if this shot isn’t heard around the world so long as they hear it in London. This war [World War I] has been used by the mother of parliaments as their latest excuse to further deny the legitimate claims of the Irish people. It is entirely and poetically fitting that we use the very same war to advance those claims. The success of this mission could well spell the achievement or denial of our goals for this generation of Irishmen. Do your jobs well. This moment belongs to all of us and to the Irish people as well…but to one in particular. Do you have words for us, Conor Larkin?”

So there it was, round and round the universe, round and round the circle of life. It all begins and ends in the same place, doesn’t it? Conor and me in Ballyutogue. We all come home eventually. As he stood before us now he was no longer the stern commander, but he bore the look of a young boy, smoldering…far away from us…how strange, how very strange. He was surrounded by men who worshiped him and a woman who loved him beyond loving. He seemed unaware. Was he fulfilled at last? Had he reached so much as a single answer to his long, sorrowful journey? Ah, Conor lad, Conor lad. It is so good to be here with you at this moment. I would not have missed it for anything. Not even for the day of the rising.

“If there are some among you who do not come back, I am sorry I was not good enough or thorough enough. As for words? Well, there is too much magnificent literature and too many pedantic ballads as well that spell out our longing for freedom. What can a fool like myself add to all that? As Catholics we learned to accept mysteries as children. Some of those who questioned mysteries found that they weren’t mysteries at all. But there is a mystery that defies all attempts to explain it. There is no mystery more intense than a man’s love for his country. It is the most terrible beauty of all. No greater tragedy has befallen our people, who, through generations of suffering at others’ hands, have lost this furious love of country. Tomorrow, we open our case to rekindle that flagging spirit.”

(snip)

When all this was done, a republic eventually came to pass but the sorrows and the troubles have never left that tragic, lovely land. For you see, in Ireland there is no future, only the past happening over and over.

“It occurred to me that a phrase like Repentant Majority or Forgiven Majority might be a more correct way of describing Christians than Moral Majority. Such a label would credit God for any trace of goodness, thus assuring that, in Paul’s phrase, “no one can boast.” Instead, we convey an unctuousness that drives away the very people to whom Jesus directed his appeal: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” he said. I could find no prod toward success or superiority in the invitations of Jesus Christ. Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part.”

from Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church by Phillip Yancey

(United 93 was provided to me by Special Ops Media for the purpose of review.)

United 93 is an incredible movie. It’s very difficult to watch, and I cried through most of the last hour. The people who made this movie did a wonderful job of simply telling the story; it isn’t overly sentimental or emotionalized. The actors are all unknowns, which makes you feel like you are watching this as it happened. There isn’t a Harrison Ford or Tom Cruise to pull you out of the scene, and this makes it all the more realistic.

As I watched, I kept thinking what a different world we live in now. When the air traffic controllers and military first learn of the planes being hijacked, there is a sense of unbelief and nobody seems all that frightened. Compare that to what happens now if so much as a suspicious package is found in an airport lobby, or a woman wants to bring her knitting needles on board. Our world is so radically changed.

It was eerie to watch the scenes of people in the airport and then later on the plane, laughing, talking on cell phones, complaining about the delay in takeoff. So normal. They had no idea that their lives would be ending that day, or that they would be called on to make a selfless, heroic decision.

The people on United 93 were heroes. They were afraid, and yet they did what they had to do to keep the hijackers from using the plane to attack a building and kill even more people. The scenes at the end, of people phoning home and telling their families goodbye, are particularly heartbreaking. I can’t even imagine receiving a phone call like that – let alone being in the position to make one.

No one person comes out the hero of this movie, this event. Many of the passengers and flight crew come together to bring the plane down. In fact, I don’t remember any names even being mentioned. This movie wasn’t made to sensationalize any one person, or to hype what happened. It was made as a testimonial to what ordinary people can do when put in horrifying circumstances. It is a movie that honors their memory.

This movie is rated R for violence and language. It is very realistic in it’s portrayal of the stabbing of the pilot and copilot, and the language among the military and air traffic controllers is understandably strong as they realize what is happening to our country.

You can visit the movie’s official site here and purchase a copy here.

How could a good God allow such a blemished world to exist? Brand had responded to my complaints one by one. Disease? Did I know that of the twenty-four thousand species of bacteria, all but a few hundred are healthful, not harmful? Plants could not produce oxygen, nor could animals digest food without the assistance of bacteria. Indeed, bacteria constitute half of all living matter. Most agents of disease, he explained, vary from these necessary organisms in only slight mutations.

What about birth defects? He launched into a description of the complex biochemistry involved in producing one healthy child. The great wonder is not that birth defects occur but that millions more do not. Could a mistake-proof world have been created so that the human genome with its billions of variables would never err in transmission? No scientist could envision such an error-free system in our world of fixed physical laws.

“I’ve found it helpful to try to think like the Creator,” Brand told me. “My engineering team at Carville has done just that. For several years our team worked with the human hand. What engineering perfection we find there! I have a bookcase filled with surgical textbooks that describe operations people have devised for the injured hand, different ways to rearrange the tendons, muscles, and joints, ways to replace sections of bones and mechanical joints – thousands of surgical procedures. But I know of no procedure that succeeds in improving a normal hand. For example, the best materials we use in artificial joint replacements have a coefficient of friction one-fifth that of the body’s joints, and these replacements only last a few years. All the techniques correct the deviants, the one hand in a hundred that is not fuctioning as God designed. After operating on thousands of hands, I must agree with Isaac Newton: ‘In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.’”

I kept proposing exceptions, and Brandt dealt with each. Even at its worst, he continued, our natural world shows evidence of careful design. Like a tour guide at an art museum, he excitedly described the beautiful way torn muscle filaments reconnect, “like the teeth of interlocking combs,” after an injury. “And do you know about the ductus arteriosus? A bypass vessel, it routes blood directly to a developing fetus’s extremities, instead of to the lungs. At the moment of birth, suddenly all blood must pass through the lungs to receive oxygen because now the baby is breathing air. In a flash, a flap descends like a curtain, deflecting the blood flow, and a muscle constricts the ductus arteriosus. After performing that one act, the muscle gradually dissolves and gets absorbed by the rest of the baby. Without this split-second adjustment, the baby could never survive outside the womb.”

from Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church by Phillip Yancey

…Randi
Brandi
Pennsylvania Progressive!

Congratulations!

If you’re curious about the scientific way that I determined the winners, here’s what I did: I wrote down a list of everyone who commented, cut the names out and folded them in half, placed them in a coffee mug, and had my daughter Natalie draw out three! Scientific, huh?

Randi, Brandi, and Penn. Prog. will all be receiving a Barbie in the Twelve Dancing Princesses DVD in the mail. I will be sending them out media mail sometime this week, so you should have them in the next week or two, depending on how far you live from me. I will be contacting you by e-mail for your snail mail addresses, so if the e-mail you use when leaving comments isn’t your main one, be sure and check it today!

There is still a chance that I may receive two more copies for giveaway. If that happens, I will draw two more names – I left the rest of you in the mug on the shelf by the computer, just in case. (Well, not you – your names are still in the mug.)