Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi: The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke
Reading this book explained a whole lot of things about why so many families I know are struggling financially, even though we don't spend extravagantly. Simultaneously enlightening and nauseating.
Elizabeth Warren: All Your Worth : The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan
If other personal finance books have frustrated you because they assume you have money to invest and you don't even have enough money to buy a large coffee, this is the personal finance book for you. Reading this book showed me that it's not that I waste money on stupid things--it's that our basic expenses are too high to begin with. Reading this book is the end of financial guilt and the beginning of getting out of the hole.
Adele Faber: Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too
Lots of great ideas to think about and put into practice about not assigning your kids roles and how to approach fights. Also goes over some of the stuff from the How to Talk So Kids Will Listen book about making kids feel understood. Because, really, that's all anyone wants--to be understood. And kids are people, too.
Anne Lamott: Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
Just perfect. A beautiful, funny, sad, accurate account of what the first days, weeks, and months with a baby are like. This is exactly what your journal would be, if you could write as well as she does.
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc: Random Family : Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
LeBlanc's writing and pacing makes you want to keep reading despite the tragic story. Think you have an informed opinion about welfare reform and how to strengthen families in this country? Not until you've read this book.
John Taylor Gatto: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
This is the red pill. Don't read it if you want to stay comfortable with the American school system. Gatto goes into why government-owned schools were created and the things they actually teach us.
Ellis Avery: The Smoke Week: September 11-21, 2001
If you have any curiosity about what it was like for New Yorkers during the World Trade Center attacks, this is the book to read. A brilliant, crystalline, spot-on memoir of the week or so after the attacks, this book is an ode to New Yorkers. Realistic, clean, and completely un-maudlin, it's just the story of what it was like for us. This is what should go into a time capsule to represent September 2001.
Congratulations!
Missed your scare - glad that's over with. Hope it stays that way.
Posted by: Menita | January 14, 2005 at 01:05 PM
Glad it came out well, but, um, that's BB King you big silly.
Posted by: Cecily | January 14, 2005 at 03:11 PM
Many congrats. Can't wait to hear from someone in the NYC preschool trenches.
Posted by: Brooklyn Girl | January 14, 2005 at 04:42 PM
Glad it went well - I had my own problems with my last pregnancy and the dreaded quad screen - was told I was at higher risk for t18, which is "not compatible with life." Scary stuff - lots of sob stories (with color photos!) available on the web.
Anyway, I had an amnio (who knew I would do such a thing?) and blessedly, everything was fine.
My youngest is 6 months old and healthy as a cow (without that mad cow disease, of course).
So glad things are looking good for you!
Posted by: Lisa S (& Riley, Bella, & Adelyn) | January 14, 2005 at 04:51 PM
Lisa, doing amnio doesn't surprise me at all. If I wanted to do testing, I would go straight to amnio, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. t18 is Trisomy 18? I also got that bogus diagnosis with my first, but blew it off when a second opinion thought it wasn't based on any evidence.
Cec, I knew it looked wrng when I typed Bo Didley, but couldn't come up with any other name that made sense to my brain.
Posted by: Moxie | January 14, 2005 at 07:15 PM
Is it wrong to be hooting over here at "Bo Diddley?"
Good news on the test. Rock on!
Posted by: Toni | January 15, 2005 at 10:58 AM
You have to interview for preschools?! Is that just NY? What the hell? I'm waiting for details with bated breath.
Posted by: Linda | January 16, 2005 at 02:14 AM