I think I can actually see it now!

The light at the end of the tunnel, that is.

I've been away from my blog for more than week. During that time I was a single mom for a weekend while my husband went away for some much-needed and well-deserved relaxation with the guys in a rustic little cabin up north. And I finished a couple of desktop publishing projects and got hired for a couple more -- hurray! I might be able to put Daniel in daycare next year after all! -- which pleases me no end, but of course cuts into my blogging time. And novel-reading time.

The light at the end of the tunnel. It's very far off, but unmistakeably there:

1. Joey and Lena walk themselves home from school now. They've been walking themselves to school all along, but coming home is new. I thought I would miss seeing the other parents. I don't. It's great!

2. And even better, Daniel is potty training! That is to say, I've discovered that when he's naked he does not wet the floor. So we're spending a lot of time at home. Naked.

3. His language is getting more complex too. Now he sometimes uses the pronoun "I," as in "I want!" Speech is still not very clear, though. Yesterday he was excitedly pointing out the window and saying (we thought) "Monkey diaper! Monkey diaper!" Then we saw the motorcycle.

4. And when I ask him to do something, instead of grinning devilishly and doing the opposite, he says "Okay, Mama" and does it. About a quarter of the time.

Anyway. As I said, I haven't read anything much lately. Of course I have to read a few pages of something -- anything! -- before falling asleep, so I picked up What's Bred in the Bone. I love Robertson Davies very dearly, but the tenth reread is just not as good as the first time. Especially if you've read all his other novels about ten times as well. Davies only has one voice. Read a random paragraph from any book, and you wouldn't know which book, or which character, except by the plot. His one voice is delightful, of course. And wise, and fascinating. And that's fine in Fifth Business, where the middle-aged first-person narrator is telling his own life story. But the delightfully wise and fascinating voice doesn't work so well for the twenty-ish hero of Bone. If he's so delightfully wise and fascinating why did he fall in love with that dorky Ismay?

Or is it my fault for reading the same book so many times? Is it wrong to expect a book to "last" forever?