Nerdy Birthday Goodies

I had an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday a while back, and I finally got around to ordering some stuff with it. I ordered books, of course (although I did have a look at their perfume offerings, I swear!).

I was telling the girls what I ordered, but they weren't all that familiar with the books or the authors, even though the books are fantastic fiction and Husband and I rave about them. Sophia and Elannah were both born with some sort of gene mutation that makes them enjoy horror movies and horror stories. I and their father, on the other hand, aren't even emotionally comfortable with extreme thrillers, and both their grandmothers would probably give them a good, long lecture about the evils of their heart-racing entertainment choices (I read part of one Stephen King novel when I was 15 and we were driving cross-country to visit my grandparents in California. I didn't like it much, but it was all I had with me. My mom happened to pick it up and page through it, was aghast at some of the subject matter, and then impulsively threw it out of the window somewhere in the middle of the Mojave Desert). So where they developed a love for a good scare, I have no idea whatsoever. As long as their scary movies and books aren't raunchy, linguistically shocking, gory, or X-rated, I'm all right with it even if I don't understand their little alien minds.

Sian and Gabrielle are better devotees of Husband's and my book preferences. Gabrielle, in particular, is a frantic fan of Brandon Sanderson. Perhaps it's because we had more time to read them fantasy and science fiction as small children--before their siblings came along and outnumbered us as parents and Barney the Dinosaur took over a lot of the entertainment duties.

Anyway, Sophia and Elannah weren't all that excited when I informed them that we will now possess our own copies of Brandon Sanderson's The Alloy of Law and Jonathan Stroud's The Screaming Staircase. When I told them that our collections were closer to complete, they mumbled something without much enthusiasm.

"I also ordered an adult coloring book!" I said brightly.

There was a silence, pregnant with disapproval.

"Um, Mom? What, exactly, is an adult coloring book?" asked Sophia, eyebrows raised. "Is it, like, not appropriate for children?"

I can see where she would make that obvious mistake. But "adult coloring books" is how they're listed on Amazon and it's how people describe them when they rave about the mental relaxation benefits of coloring in them. It's easier than calling them "coloring books for adults who wish they could escape back into the best parts of childhood again."

Rest assured, the coloring pages in adult coloring books aren't racy. In fact, they are filled with scenes of men and women sitting at the kitchen table paying bills, shopping at the grocery store with a list, making sensible shoe choices, leaning against an office desk holding a Dilbert mug, and--in one of the more moving scenes--dancing around a bonfire on which they are burning the mortgage papers.

I kid, of course. The one I chose mainly contains scenes of ladies who lunch.