Book Review: The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart

I’m a very visual person so when I saw the cover art for this book by Julia Stuart I had to get it from the library. I’m disappointed when a book has good cover art but the story fails to capture my attention; however, this definitely wasn’t the case with Stuart’s novel. I read The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise in two days, which is quite the feat when you’ve got other priorities. It was so enchanting and whimsical and full of little-known (or little-known to me, anyway) facts about the Tower of London.

Balthazar Jones is a Beefeater at the Tower of London and lives there with his wife Hebe and their 120-year-old tortoise Mrs. Cook. The Jones’ son Milo died three years before the story begins, so the couple is still reeling from the shock of losing their only child; they’ve handled their grief differently and have grown apart following Milo’s death. There are a wide array of interesting characters that also live and work at the Tower, and Stuart does a great job of incorporating the Tower’s history into the story. Because of his penchant for animal care, the Queen wants Balthazar to oversee her royal menagerie, which is being transferred to the Tower for a new display. Comprised of numerous animals including escape-artist penguins, giraffes, a Komodo dragon, and an Etruscan shrew that suffers from debilitating shyness and anxiety, Balthazar has his work cut out for him. When Hebe leaves and Mrs. Cook apparently “runs” away, Balthazar is forced to reevaluate his life choices and face his deepest, darkest secret.

I was sad when I finished The Tower,The Zoo, and The Tortoise. Stuart is also the author of two other works, neither of which I’ve enjoyed as much as this one. This book makes me want to go back to London and visit the Tower. I learned more about Tower history from Stuart’s novel than I did when I visited the site a few years ago!If you’re in need of a fast, different read, I’d give this one a try.

Mom Fail

Z’s daycare is great about doing sensory activities to develop motor skills for the infants and toddlers. No kid is exempt from these fun classroom activities—even the babies get out there and participate, which I think is great. A couple of weeks ago they finger painted. When I picked Z up from school I heard all about how much fun she had saw the photographic evidence proving she enjoyed painting. Her painting wasn’t too shabby for 8-month-old either. She still had remnants of blue and red paint in her hair and ears, but hey, that’s life. I decided we would recreate this fun activity at home during the weekend. I’m a big art lover and thought “Oh great! This will develop Z’s appreciation for art and we will be able to hang her artwork around the house. Maybe we can even create paintings to give to family members for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day this year.” Hmm, right Natalie.

Our Parents as Teachers (this is such a great program!) lady gave me a homemade recipe for paint using ingredients you already have at your house. The recipe is:

1 cup flour

1 cup salt

1 cup water

Food coloring

Clear plastic squeeze bottles from craft store

Mix everything together in a large bowl and divide the paint into the bottles. Add food coloring drops and shake well until mixed. The paint won’t dry out and you’ll have some for next time.

I mixed the paint together and R set up the painting studio in the living room by laying out a big cardboard box and throwing sheets of drawing paper on top. We stripped Z to her diaper and drizzled paint on the paper. She went nuts! It was so fun! Until….she ate some. It was so salty that she started choking and gagging. We gave her a drink of water and she resumed her artistic creativity. Then she ate it again! This time she melted down because she had eaten a large chunk and couldn’t get the salty paint off her tongue. She was inconsolable. It probably didn’t help that she was tired because she hadn’t napped at all and it was hot outside. The salt granules made cleanup hard and Z had to take a bath. She usually loves bath time but was fed up with us at this point so that was pretty tortuous as well. Bottom line: don’t implement activities when your kid/husband/you need a nap, and consider the age-appropriateness of the activity before you start. Those daycare teachers make everything look so easy. I’m constantly amazed at how well they do with eight kids under two years old in their classroom. I know it’s their career but still. I’d need a Starbucks in the parking lot if I were a preschool teacher.

From this little activity we did get five nice paintings that we’re going to do something with eventually. Right now they’re in our closet because the cats were licking them. Two days after the incident I realized Zoe still had salt paint in her left ear. So we need to work on thorough cleaning during bath time too. 

  

Product Review: Vaseline Spray & Go Moisturizer

I just bought a bottle of Vaseline’s new Spray & Go Moisturizer. This stuff is amazing! I don’t like the greasiness or sticky residue of regular lotion and I hate how long it takes to soak in. I also have a tendency to buy bottles of lotion, especially if I have a coupon or they’re on sale, and then use half and abandon the bottle. Robin gets annoyed because I put these half-used bottles of lotion under the bathroom sink “just in case we need them.” This new Spray & Go is easy to use, smells great, and is lightweight. You do have to rub it in but it absorbs quickly and doesn’t leave you feeling like you’re covered in butter. The spray aspect is nice and I think it will be very useful for traveling because I doubt it will leak like traditional lotion bottles. Also, I’ll most likely use an entire bottle and therefore eliminate a new addition to the lotion graveyard under our sink. There are three different scents of Spray & Go Moisturizer and I can’t wait to try the other two (I currently have the Pure Oat Extract kind and it smells really nice. Some days I don't even wear perfume because I forget after I put the lotion on.). Thanks, Vaseline! You’re awesome. 

Flashback Friday: Freakout at Pompeii

Every Friday I’m going to write a post about a funny, interesting, or unusual experience I’ve had while traveling. This is a way for me to remember fun trips and the unique times I’ve had on my travels around the world. Today’s flashback comes from 2005 when I was in Europe on a school trip. We were visiting Pompeii in Italy, which is one of my favorite places. The history of the site is incredible. In 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius erupted, blanketing Pompeii and the neighboring city of Herculaneum with volcanic ash and debris, effectively preserving the Roman cities for over 1,500 years. The towns were frozen in time and you can now visit them and get a good sense of the layout of an ancient city in the Roman Empire. Visiting Pompeii is both awe-inspiring and tragic. I think the plaster casts of the citizens of Pompeii, especially their fear and grief-stricken faces, really make the disaster resonate with us today. 

We had to get up very early to take the daytrip from Rome to Pompeii. After an amazing tour, we found a restaurant to eat at which was located right outside of Pompeii’s gates. It was a gorgeous sunny day with no clouds in the sky, so we ate under a tree. Eating pasta, fresh bread, salad, and drinking wine just doesn’t get any better than in Italy, especially when surrounded by gorgeous views in a historically significant location. There was a light breeze that kept us from becoming too hot, but it also kept causing small seeds to fall from the tree we were sitting under. That got a little annoying when we started eating because the seeds were getting in our food. It took a few minutes to realize that the seeds were then walking off our plates. Turned out they weren't seeds at all, but ticks! We freaked out and started running toward the nearest bathroom to check ourselves. My sixteen-year-old self didn't know much about ticks but I knew they were bad and could cause Lyme disease. Now that I think about it, I still don't know anything about ticks, 10 years later. I do know they're bad though. Anyway, one girl, who shall remain nameless, actually took off her shirt and ran to the bathroom screaming in just her bra. The other tourists and proprietors of the restaurant sure got a good show that day, especially because none of them knew what had caused eight American teenage girls to start freaking out at Pompeii. Luckily none of the ticks had started feasting on us so we avoided contracting Lyme disease (maybe?) that day; however, I will always associate Pompeii with ticks. Just a few days ago I warned a colleague who's planning a trip to Pompeii that he better wear a hat, just in case.

Three Years Later: An Update

After taking a three-year hiatus from writing my blog, I’ve decided to return. I thoroughly enjoy writing and really need to get back to doing so on a daily basis. A lot has changed in three years. Here is a brief summary of what is going on in my life:

Marriage: My French husband and I married in July 2011. Time has flown and it’s been great. Tackling the tedious immigration process to get my husband’s Green Card was hard and lengthy but he has it now. It’ll be a couple of years before he’ll be able to apply for U.S. citizenship and I’ll be eligible for French citizenship through marriage. Thinking about all that paperwork and preparation stresses me out so we will tackle that when the time comes. Every member of our family having dual-citizenship will be pretty neat.

Baby: Four months after we got married we found out we were expecting. Zoe was born six days before our first wedding anniversary. She’s the greatest thing to ever happen to us and constantly keeps us entertained. Motherhood is pretty amazing. Raising a bilingual baby is pretty interesting. The diaper explosions are pretty nasty. Our house is pretty messy. We’re a pretty happy little American-French family though, so it’s okay.

Fur babies: We adopted our cat Tucker on September 11, 2011. I wanted to do something worthwhile that day so adopting a cat made sense, sort of. He’s a really cuddly guy and is very smart; he enjoys opening dresser drawers and sleeping amongst our clothes. Robin is his favorite person ever. We adopted Lily Pip when she was 10 weeks old and a month before Z arrived. A kitten and a newborn? Crazy. I can check that off the list. Our cats are not declawed because it’s inhumane so our furniture is torn to shreds. Lily likes taking our art off the walls and climbing in the silverware drawer in the kitchen. She sleeps in the bathtub. Tucker and Lily are best buds. We always say that raising our cats is harder than raising Z. I can’t imagine our house without pets though.

House: We bought our house in April 2012. It’s a pretty modest little house but it works well for us. We watch a lot of HGTV and have big design aspirations. Hopefully one day we’ll be able to accomplish them all.

Car: We shared a car for the first 9 months of our marriage. That was pretty tricky and involved a lot of scheduling, but we saved a lot of money. Before Z’s arrival we needed to get a second one. So we did. I’ll be glad when we’re done paying that sucker off. The inside currently smells like Starbucks Vanilla Blonde Roast because of the Great Coffee Spill of 2013.

Graduate School: I started working on my master’s in January 2012. I’m studying Nonprofit Administration. It’s pretty cool. I’ll enjoy working in the nonprofit sector and hopefully making a difference in people’s lives.

After doing all of these events in the span of less than a year, I’m tired. It’s time to settle down and not make any more huge life changes, for a while at least. Time is flying so fast!