Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

This was okay, nothing too fascinating in it. I don't honestly have anything worth saying about it. 

Class Mom by Laurie Gelman

I'll be honest--I am 44 books behind on my book blog so I am going to settle for super short reviews now. 3 sentences or less until I get caught up. It's just too hard to keep up now, but I at least want to get through the year. I may have to transition to Goodreads reviewing after this year.

This was hilarious and so snarky and witty. I loved the snarkiness and anti-involvement of this mom. 

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

I still hadn't read anything by Fredrik Backman other than A Man Called Ove, which I TOTALLY LOVED. So I'm not sure why I hadn't read any of his other stuff. But Tommy and Bethany both highly recommended this one to me, and again, it took me way too long to get to it. Once I started it, though, I loved it. It had the same really happy feel good ending to me that I loved in A Man Called Ove, where a weird, disparate community forms and people end up being better than you think they are. This story is about a bank robbery that wasn't, which then accidentally evolved into a hostage situation, and then turned out to be a group of people trying to help someone else. It's called Anxious People because you see into everyone's heads and get to understand a little bit of their problems and the way they think and what anxieties they have, and see how everyone has issues. It was super funny and sweet and heartwarming at the same time, and way better than I even expected. 

Laundry Love: Finding Joy in a Common Chore by Patric Richardson

I thought this book would be more metaphorical with more stories and "life lessons" than it ended up being--but it basically is almost completely a book about how to do laundry the right way. Haha! It was pretty short and actually full of new information that I didn't ever know about how to do the laundry. I learned a lot about better ways to do laundry and taking care of your clothes. It seemed like the best thing about this book is all of the specific tips for specific items of clothing, so I feel like this would be a good book to have if you need to look up how to remove a specific type of stain or if you need to wash something really persnickety. He basically says you should never need to dry clean anything and that you don't need to use all the fancy detergents--you can just use soap flakes! I want to try his tips and things at some other time in my life, but right now is not the time for me to overhaul our laundry routine completely with our new baby coming. But this would definitely be a good reference guide. 

Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen Doucleff

I thought this book was absolutely fascinating about parenting in indigenous cultures. The author goes to three different indigenous cultures (Mayan, Inuit, and Hadzabe) and observes and interviews parents about how they parent and what they do differently from our WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) parenting styles. Turns out, WEIRD parenting is really different from the way that most parents have done it for millennia--but the parenting that these indigenous cultures are doing is based off of what has worked for generations and hasn't changed as much. I thought that was one of the most compelling arguments for the book--our parenting style in WEIRD countries has only been happening for two or three generations at most, and most parenting articles and research being done in WEIRD countries is based only on WEIRD parents and kids so nothing has actually been generationally proven to work. 

It was really interesting just learning about these three different cultures and hearing about what she observed from these groups, but also super, super informative. I thought Doucleff did such a good job describing what the parents in these other cultures were doing, but then also breaking it down and giving specific, actionable items that parents could try. It was a cross between anthropological research and parenting, and I was super into it. I think I want to buy a hard copy so I can go back and reference it again because I know I will want to remember what she wrote about. I read it as an e-book on my phone but I then checked out a hard copy from the library because I wanted to read through it more thoroughly again and take better notes. 

Major ideas that I got from the book:

• Instead of just giving kids chores to do, make them involved in helping with the family as a whole. We all work together and make contributions to the family. Give them real responsibilities that are really helpful. 
• Minimize child-centered activities and toys/entertainment. Maximize their exposure to the adult world and bring them along on errands and do activities that you would want to do even without them.
• Don't force an issue is the kid is resisting a request. Don't nag and don't force. Practice encouragement. Use praise very sparingly, and when you do use it, praise an overall value like helpfulness or maturity. 
• Remember that anger towards a child is unproductive. It generates conflict, builds tension, stops communication. Every time we yell at a child, we teach them to yell, and we let them practice getting angry and yelling. When we respond with calmness, we give them a chance to practice calmness and calming down. 
• If you feel angry, stay quiet. Don't talk. Walk away until you can be calm. 
• Teach yourself to have less/no anger towards children. Change how you view their behavior and expect misbehavior. Never argue or negotiate with a child. Stop forcing them to do things and use encouragement instead. 
• Responding to tantrums: Go low-energy when they're screaming. Stand near them silently and physically support them. Touch them gently. Help the child to replace their anger with the feeling of awe by finding something beautiful to look at. Go outside. 
• Responding to everyday misbehaviors: Use the look. Calmly state the consequences of the child's actions then walk away. Ask the child a question that will get them to think ("Who's being disrespectful? Who's hitting?"). Give the misbehaving child a task/responsibility. 
• Use stories and dramas to encourage children to behave and to learn values. Tell stories from your childhood, put on a puppet show, use a monster story, use an inanimate object to help teach what to do.
• Reduce how often you instruct your child. Try to keep it to 3 commands an hour. Give the kids autonomy in certain areas/places where you can watch and only minimally interfere.
• Use T.E.A.M. parenting:
• T: Togetherness
• E: Encourage
• A: Autonomy
• M: Minimize Interference
• T.E.A.M. parenting is different from helicopter and free-range parenting because parents are in charge of macro-parenting issues, like scheduling and activities. But within those family-centered activities, the child is largely in charge of their own behavior with autonomy and minimal interference. 

Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone

This was different than I expected because I thought it would be just a straight thriller, but then you start realizing that something else is going on partway through the book, and you try to figure out what is happening. This book is about Ariel Pryce, who wakes up on a vacation in Lisbon and is worried to realize that her new husband is missing. She tries to track him down and spends the next two days looking for him, trying to get the police and the embassy to help her. And then you realize other things are happening and that there is more going on than you realized at first... I thought this book was really satisfying and interesting, and it was so nice to see true justice exacted on someone who was really terrible. 

You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld

I burned through these short stories really quickly and thought they were so good. I really liked each one of them and how they represented such different people. I feel like a short story is such an interesting genre that I don't read enough of, but every time I do, I am so engaged and interested and wish I read more of them. I don't have anything specific to say about any of the specific stories, but it was definitely worth the read. 

Just Haven't Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens

After reading This Time Next Year, I figured I could read another Sophie Cousens romance in an afternoon and relax a little more. This one was less enjoyable than This Time Next Year though, and I ended up skimming a few chapters because I was wanting to get to the good part, where she realizes who she's in love with. Laura is obsessed with meet-cutes and with having a great romantic story, because of her parents' sweeping love story that she's heard since birth, and then she accidentally ends up with the wrong man's luggage at the airport and decides that this must be the man for her. She somehow ends up getting a cab driver to drive her all around the island of Jersey looking for this guy, and it becomes increasingly evident that she should be with the cab driver to everyone except her. It took a while but eventually everything got figured out. I thought it was cute and that was all. 

Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne

I was so annoyed by this that I ended up not finishing it. Is it lame to still review it on here and count it as one of my books? No. I spent a number of hours listening to this story and I just couldn't rack up the energy or the interest to try and finish it. Ruthie works at a retirement community and is such a nervous person that it's hard for her to even leave the property without having panic attacks. Then Teddy, a huge, muscular, tattooed man comes and ends up working as an assistant at the community. For some reason, he is clearly attracted to her and acts like she's the most interesting person on earth even though she DEFINITELY IS NOT. I just found their dynamic weird and creepy and completely not believable, and I didn't want to find out how they got together because it did not make any sense to me. 

This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens

I don't know where I heard about this book, but it seemed like a light, fluffy, quick romance that would be easy to inhale as an e-book on my phone. (I don't know why, but I've been reading a LOT on my phone lately, which I never, ever used to do except when nursing. I've gotten a lot more reading done this way this last month.) This book is about Minnie Cooper (yep), who was born on the same night and in the same hospital as Quinn Hamilton, and has spent her whole life feeling resentful toward him for stealing her name. I thought it was a cute story and I kind of liked all of the near-misses where they kept almost running into each other throughout the book. I wasn't super overly invested in it, though, but I was happy that it worked out in the end.