Love list: Books, dancing, and clothes

1. Baby lit
Have you heard of these? They are classic books made over into simple board books for babies. I've been wanting one forever and finally ordered one this week. It's my favorite - Pride and Prejudice - and I think it's just darling. It doesn't really give much of the story, it's just a counting book. One English Town, Two Gentleman, Three Houses, Four Marriage Proposals... Ten (thousand) pounds a year. I think the illustrations are really cute. Emma's mildly interested in it - I'm pretty sure I like it more than she does. There's several others, so we will definitely be expanding our library soon!

2. My child's got rhythm
This cracks me up. Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb is one of Punkito's favorite books (thanks, Ollie!) and we read it several times a day. This past week she has started bobbing/nodding her head in time to the cadence of the book. Every time we read it! Hilarious.

3. Breast feeding 
Ok, I'm always thankful for breastfeeding so this one isn't exactly new. But I'm particularly grateful this week because as Punkito was sick (and for a good bit afterward) her appetite has been non-existant. Seriously, for 2-3 days we couldn't get her to eat anything at all. She's just now starting to get it back. I asked the doctor about it and they said it was fine as long as she was still getting plenty of fluids and having wet diapers, which she is. But I've been deeply comforted by the fact that she still nurses four times a day, and that didn't seem to decrease at all while she was sick, so I feel confident that she was still getting plenty of nutrition. I know some people think it's a bit odd that I'm still nursing a 14-month-old four times a day, but I'm so thankful for breastfeeding for so many reasons and this just adds one more.

4. Shopping my closet
One of the greatest things about losing a ton of weight is that I'm discovering a bunch of old clothes that I can all of a sudden wear again! Some of these I haven't worn since 2008 and 2009. It's like a whole new wardrobe without spending any money!

5. Allegiant
I finally finished the Divergent series. The first two books only took me a couple nights each, but the last book took my a couple weeks. I accidentally stumbled upon a spoiler for it that made me not want to read it, but I wanted to see the series through. I have some pretty mixed feelings about how it ended. On the one hand - I hated it. It's not very uplifting and I had to say goodbye to some characters I really liked. On the other hand, I was surprised by how much I liked the writing. I often feel like YA books are so sappy and idealistic (I'm looking at you, Twilight). But I felt like this one was refreshingly real. It has great messages without feeling moralistic with a heavy hand. In particular, I liked what it had to say about sacrifice and love. And in a weird way, I kind of like that the ending wasn't all resolved and happy. It wasn't really an ending, because life doesn't just end - certain stories just do. So even though I didn't love the book the same way I did the first two, I'd say I'm satisfied by it and it was worth reading. I have that sense of sadness you feel when you're done with a good book and just wondering... "What now?" Anyone have any good recommendations?