Read Online Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch - Free Book Online Page B

Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (twelve kids, of course).
    I figured the number four was perfect, an even number for pairing and sharing, and no ganging-up, two on one. I would have enough time to share among four kids, and moments alone with each of them. I would be able to remember each name in the fury of yelling (I am embarrassed to admit that I have yelled out the cats’ names when truly angry), and I could gather all four in my arms at one time. I stopped at four, and I was home to take care of them, one after the other and all together.
    For twelve years, our time together was palmy as life with date-boys should be. The word palmy isn’t used much anymore, but it’s a good one. It derives from the benefits of dates, which come from palm trees, and means glorious, prosperous, flourishing. Four boys in tow, for years we flourished and prospered. Books were at the forefront of our activities, with regular visits to the library and to the bookstore. Books were used to soothe before bed, pacify at meals (a good book can distract a four-year-old from the fact that he is eating something green), and excite and inspire as needed. When the kids needed to run around and let off steam, I used music. The “William Tell Overture” could get us galloping through the kitchen within minutes, and Madonna and Prince were perfect for dancing on couches and tables.
    Lawless games of running, screaming, tagging, and hiding prevailed when we moved out of the city and found ourselves surrounded by space, indoors and out. Swings were hung from trees, bikes and scooters of all sizes piled up, and basketballs bounded about in various stages of deflation. Jack and I veered away from video games and gaming systems. Family screen time was spent on movies and old TV shows. And we always came back to books. Our bookcases overflowed with series like the Narnia books and Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, and all of the Hardy Boys, along with the Zack Files, the Time Warp Trio, Captain Underpants, and, of course, Harry Potter. Every day ended with books, and most days started with them, collections of FoxTrot , Calvin and Hobbes , and the Cartoon History of the Universe read beside bowls of cereal and glasses of juice.
    One of my favorite children’s books is The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman. The Seven Silly Eaters is about a cello-playing, book-reading, pear-shaped, wrinkled-shirt-wearing mom who delights in her children but becomes increasingly (and hilariously) careworn as she has more and more children. The kids pile up year after year, each one a more finicky eater than the last. The dad, handsome and rugged, stays in the background of the story, planting trees and lugging groceries.
    The book’s illustrations of a hand-hewed house on an island and filled with cats, kids, laundry, musical instruments, homemade crafts, and books, books, books were like a blueprint of my own home. Okay, we were not on an island; instead we found ourselves smack down in suburban Connecticut in a house constructed by nameless builders. But those were my kids, full of good intentions and love but also opinionated, noisy, and needy. That was my husband, handsome and supportive, willing to plant the trees but leaving all the picking to me. That was my family’s laundry, in piles waiting to be folded and all over the house, on the kitchen counter, the stairs, and the coffee table in front of the television. That was my unplayed cello (substitute a piano that I’ve been trying to learn to play for fifteen years), and those were my bookcases filled sideways and longways with books. Page after page, and day after day, of palmy days.
    The palmy days of my family fled the year my sister died. The boys were hit hard by death, one after another, over a period of just months. Three weeks after Anne-Marie died, one of my husband’s sisters died. Mary had been sick for years, but I always thought she would live on and on.