During the afternoons at our house the babies (Ben and Joe) nap and the twins, when not at school, spend time playing quietly in the basement while I have my own quiet/alone time. These afternoon hours usually culminate with me in the Lazy Boy with a book in hand. My taste varies from informative and non-fiction to a good old murder mystery. Usually I swing between the two. At the moment I am in the world of P.D. James thanks to the French teacher at Dave's school who loaned me a stack of James's books as well as a pile of BBC Miss Marple videos. In my opinion, geriatric British women seem to have an unusual taste for blood. (And yes, I do mean geriatric as James who is well into her eighth decade penned her last novel, The Private Patient, while convalescing in a private hospital.) Now I must warn you that the twins' quiet time is not particularly silent and my policing of it is mostly done from my armchair accompanied by a few dire warnings issued from the top of the basement stairs. Towards the end of quiet time, one or both of the twins usually glides silently into the room to stand expectantly at my elbow wondering what time it is (i.e. can we come up yet?). They alternate this question with what they think are covert trips to check the stove clock. The covert nature of these trips is always ruined by one of them running back downstairs and yelling, "Only 6 more minutes!" Anyway, today both twins arrived at my chair to tell me that they had only one minute left. At the time, I was absorbed in P.D. James' The Murder Room.
Hannah innocently asked, "Are you reading the Gospel or is that the Bible?"
"Ummm, neither. It's a mystery story." (Well I guess an argument could be made for Scripture fitting under the mystery genre...)
"But what's it called?" asked Jacob, "The Munder Room?"
"Uhh, it's by P.D. James." Please don't ask me what murder is.
"Yes, but what's it called?"
"The Murder Room," said Mommy under her breath and quickly hoping that this would divert more questions, "How 'bout some TV?"
The last and shameless offer did the trick. These twins are on to me. Thank God I already finished Death in Holy Orders.
4 comments:
Elena, if you can get the movie Death in Holy Orders, it is worth the watch. All of the PD James novels are made with one actor, but Death in HO is with a different one. The coastal scenery of England is magnificent and they kept that movie true to the book. Rebecca said you might be able to get it from PicFlix (is that the name?) Mom
actually mom, the same french teacher had the movie but i declined as she said it was pretty scary. after reading the book i thought that i would probably take her up on the offer.
I learned the hard way not to leave books laying around when I caught F reading "Graced-based Parenting"! I am sure she will enlighten me in my not-so-nice parenting moments. This is reminding me to keep my current read, The Book of Negroes, out of reach. Tracy
I used to do the 'alone time' thing with Geordie when he stopped napping at age 2! YES! TWO! Started with 5 minutes on a timer high up in his room and worked my way up to 45 minutes.
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