Sahara Special

My daughter has a book report to turn in this Friday. She's been reading (in tiny little fragments) Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell for the past couple of weeks. The one thing she HAD to do today was finish the book. There were about four chapters remaining. I managed to get a proper lunch on the table and then into our tummies, after which we settled down into my big fluffy bed and we read. I made some progress on Obama's Dreams From My Father and she eventually settled into Sahara Special. I only had to totally yell at her to stop making farting sounds with her mouth once. Progress.

After an hour, Q was ready to move on to the next activity. With just two chapters left to go! This is what kills me. Your one assignment that you MUST FINISH TODAY...c'mon kid...just get the job done already! Geesh. So, I offered to read aloud to her.

Forty minutes and three tissues later, we finished reading the book.

OMG, ya'll. I am such a cry-baby. It is so embarrassing! But this is one seriously good book. Well, I can only speak for the last two chapters. They were powerful. I cried. Like I usually do. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a cry-baby for a mother. I said, "It's really saaaad! Don't you think it's sad?" I got a clear-eyed, steady, "No." for a response.

Fine.

At least she has not inherited this burden of excessive sentimentality from my side of the family. My brother has been known to tear up from watching a McDonald's commercial. We are pussies. (Yeah, I said it. I've earned the right, after a lifetime of weepiness.) You don't know how many times in my life I was desperate to find some private corner in which to hide while an attack of leaky-eye-syndrome overcame me in public. It totally sucks.

As Miss Pointy says in the last chapter: "...the main character is the one who changes." I just hope that Q remains as unsentimental (yet without true snarkiness) throughout her post-pubescent years as she is now. Despite being her own main character, for her sake I hope that part doesn't change.