Before & After
Life as I know it has changed. Baby #4 has learned to climb out of the crib at will. I will think I have him settled down for the night and can FINALLY write. And voila! There he is, peeking his head around the corner.
Yeah. There is life BEFORE he learned to do this.
And life AFTER.
And, I will say, my other three kids were a LOT . . . less . . . wild. So not only is he out of the crib, but he is likely finding his sister's drumsticks and trying to break the glass coffee table by "playing" it; raiding the dog food and flinging puppy chow from end to end in the kitchen; or otherwise causing mischief.
But life is like that. There was life before I gave birth. And life after. And the difference has less to do with stretch marks and more to do with an immense outpouring of love like nothing I had ever experienced before. Then I did it three more times, each showing me that love is boundless and eternal and can grow beyond what you thought was possible.
And there are books I feel that way about.
There is life BEFORE I read The Little Prince . . . and life after. Life before I read The Sun Also Rises and life after.
So . . . before and after? Seminal event? Book? What reading experience changed you forever?
Labels: favorite books, The Little Prince, The Sun Also Rises
posted by Erica Orloff at 8:25 PM
6 Comments:
Handsome lad you have there.
The birth of my son was certainly a seminal event in my life. I know there WAS a life before, but it seems...almost like a previous existence.
L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics changed my life.
Joking!
Stephen King's stuff always inspires me, so I'll go with that.
LOL on the Dianetics!!!!!!!!!
E
Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, the What Katie Did series.
They all had these crosses to bear and yet managed to be such gentle, giving people, whereas I had lots going for me and fought a constant battle to not be so selfish.
Of course having kids kicked the majority of selfishness out of me. There is absolutely nothing I wouldn't do...or do without, for their sake.
Crib climbers. Ack! K was the most laid back thing and would have stayed in a crib until she was ten if we left her there. Q climbed out and broke a tooth before his first birthday. But with his current fascination with speed,(snowmobiles, ATV's, boats) I miss the days of him scarfing puppy chow and removing my oven door with a plastic screwdriver. :0
lainey:
I knew we were kindred sisters. ALL those books for ALL the same reasons. :-) I also think I really decided to be a writer when I read To Kill a Mockingbird.
As for kids--my oldest is now 17 and she was mellow--until she hit 13. Then I had a boy who climbed out a window when he was 14 months old . . . and we called Houdini. Could escape from anything. But . . . the mellowest adolscent, so . . . got it out of his system. Then an all-around spunky girl . . . reminds me of Anne in Green Gables. And then . . . the MONSTER. Love him, but many grey hairs from him. :-) But as you know, all of it pales to them getting their licenses. I am still not sure if my heart is going to recover.
E
What a cutie!
For me, there's before and after I got sick. Other than that, I suppose my life has been pretty boring, LOL. Maybe I'll get to have kids someday.
In the meantime, same old, same old.
I loved Jane Eyre, and the Narnia books. Oh, I cried and cried when I realized Narnia couldn't be real. (Sorry, I wasn't having any of that allegory crap at that age. I wanted the Narnia I knew.)
spy:
That is so sweet about Narnia. I used to wish the world of the Hobbit was real. And Watership Down. CRIED my way through that one, and SO wanted them to be real.
E
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