Nursery Friends Quotes

She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing. Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!

He lay far across the room from her, on a winter island separated by an empty sea. She talked to him for what seemed a long while and she talked about this and she talked about that and it was only words, like the words he had heard once in a nursery at a friend’s house, a two-year-old child building word patters, like jargon, making pretty sounds in the air.

NORA: No; only merry. And you were always so friendly and kind to me. But our house has been nothing but a nursery. Here I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I used to be papa's doll-child. And my children were, in their turn, my dolls. I was exceedingly delighted when you played with me, just as children were whenever I played with them. That has been our marriage, Torvald.

I could hardly believe what I had read. Woman’s Friend was joining the call for Government Nurseries and asking our readers to air their views in the magazine!

Time was also (as an infant) I knew no Latin; but this I learned without fear or suffering, by mere observation, amid the caresses of my nursery and jests of friends, smiling and sportively encouraging me.

...Hell is the home of the unreal and of the seekers for happiness. It is the only refuge from heaven, which is, as I tell you, the home of the masters of reality, and from earth, which is the home of the slaves of reality. The earth is a nursery in which men and women play at being heroes and heroines, saints and sinners; but they are dragged down from their fool’s paradise by their bodies: hunger and cold and thirst, age and decay and disease, death above all, make them slaves of reality: thrice a day meals must be eaten and digested: thrice a century a new generation must be engendered: ages of faith, of romance, and of science are all driven at last to have but one prayer, “Make me a healthy animal.” But here you escape this tyranny of the flesh; for here you are not an animal at all: you are a ghost, an appearance, an illusion, a convention, deathless, ageless: in a word, bodiless. There are no social questions here, no political questions, no religious questions, best of all, perhaps, no sanitary questions. Here you call your appearance beauty, your emotions love, your sentiments heroism, your aspirations virtue, just as you did on earth; but here there are no hard facts to contradict you, no ironic contrast of your needs with your pretensions, no human comedy, nothing but a perpetual romance, a universal melodrama. As our German friend put it in his poem, “the poetically nonsensical here is good sense; and the Eternal Feminine draws us ever upward and on...

The childish levels, the undersoil of the mind, had been turned up. She wanted to be with Nice people, away from Nasty people—that nursery distinction seeming at the moment more important than any later categories of Good and Bad or Friend and Enemy.

Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!

At home in the nursery, I usually played alone. Actually, I seldom played, I spoke to the wallpaper. The many dark circles in the pattern of the wallpaper seemed like people to me. I made up stories in which they appeared, either I told them the stories or they played with me, I never got tired of the wallpaper people and I could talk to them for hours.

For it must be understood that this is a children’s book only in the sense that the first of many readings can be undertaken in the nursery. Alice is read gravely by children and with laughter by grown-ups; The Hobbit, on the other hand, will be funniest to its youngest readers, and only years later, at a tenth or a twentieth reading, will they begin to realize what deft scholarship and profound reflection have gone to make everything in it so ripe, so friendly, and in its own way so true.

ANA. Thank you: I am going to heaven for happiness. I have had quite enough of reality on earth. DON JUAN. Then you must stay here; for hell is the home of the unreal and of the seekers for happiness. It is the only refuge from heaven, which is, as I tell you, the home of the masters of reality, and from earth, which is the home of the slaves of reality. The earth is a nursery in which men and women play at being heroes and heroines, saints and sinners; but they are dragged down from their fool’s paradise by their bodies: hunger and cold and thirst, age and decay and disease, death above all, make them slaves of reality: thrice a day meals must be eaten and digested: thrice a century anew generation must be engendered: ages of faith, of romance, and of science are all driven at last to have but one prayer “Make me a healthy animal.” But here you escape this tyranny of the flesh; for here you are not an animal at all: you are a ghost, an appearance, an illusion, a convention, deathless, ageless: in a word, bodiless. There are no social questions here, no political questions, no religious questions, best of all, perhaps, no sanitary questions. Here you call your appearance beauty, your emotions love, your sentiments heroism, your aspirations virtue, just as you did on earth; but here there are no hard facts to contradict you, no ironic contrast of your needs with your pretensions, no human comedy, nothing but a perpetual romance, a universal melodrama. As our German friend put it in his poem, “the poetically nonsensical here is good sense; and the Eternal Feminine draws us ever upward and on”—without getting us a step farther. And yet you want to leave this paradise!

Don’t stigmatize negative feelings; even pacifists, yogis, and nursery school teachers get road rage under the wrong circumstances. Some people have bad tempers or are chronically grouchy while others are stuck in situations that happen to hit their weak spots and drive them nuts. Either way, if you chastise yourself for having nasty feelings when you really can’t help it, you usually make them worse. After kicking yourself, you’re that much more likely to kick someone else. Becoming more positive doesn’t mean becoming sweetly angelic, but rather, decently demonic, or at least decent enough that your friends don’t all tell you to go back to hell.

Every night, I sit in the rocking chair in the nursery when I give Willow her bedtime bottle. Tonight, I burped her halfway through her feeding like always. Then I sat her on my knees facing me and made funny faces. She looked right into my eyes. And she smiled. She’s ten weeks old and she just gave me her very first smile. I wish I’d taken a picture. I’m probably supposed to be documenting everything better for her baby book or whatever. She’s going to have a terrible baby book. But at least she’ll have a father who loves her. Because when she smiled at me tonight, I finally felt it. Love. A rush of love. I was so blown away by it I laughed, which made her smile at me even more. Then I hugged her small body and breathed in the smell of her Johnson’s baby shampoo. I could feel her heartbeat. Up until tonight, I was pretty sure Willow didn’t like me, and I understood why she didn’t. I didn’t blame her for resenting the idiot, bumbling guy who started doing for her all the things her gorgeous, familiar mother had done before. But tonight . . . tonight my little girl smiled at me. She gave her very first smile to me because I’m her person now. I’m her daddy and, in her way, I think she might love me, too. When I laid her against the inside of my elbow to feed her the rest of her bottle, her hand made a fist in the fabric of my shirt. She watched me as she drank down her formula. I’m tired and lonely. Parenting is far more difficult than I understood when I was a son and not yet a father. I miss my freedom and my friends and the life I had before Sylvie told me she was pregnant. I miss who I used to be. But tonight my daughter, a tiny girl in pink pajamas, smiled at me. Because I’m her person. Letter

Now I know what makes you so different from other women," said John Tenison, when he and Margaret were alone. "It's having that wonderful mother! She--she--well, she's one woman in a million; I don't have to tell you that! It's something to thank God for, a mother like that; it's a privilege to know her. I've been watching her all day, and I've been wondering what SHE gets out of it--that was what puzzled me; but now, just now, I've found out! This morning, thinking what her life is, I couldn't see what REPAID her, do you see? What made up to her for the unending, unending effort, and sacrifice, the pouring out of love and sympathy and help--year after year after year..." He hesitated, but Margaret did not speak. "You know," he went on musingly, "in these days, when women just serenely ignore the question of children, or at most, as a special concession, bring up one or two--just the one or two whose expenses can be comfortably met!--there's something magnificent in a woman like your mother, who begins eight destinies instead of one! She doesn't strain and chafe to express herself through the medium of poetry or music or the stage, but she puts her whole splendid philosophy into her nursery--launches sound little bodies and minds that have their first growth cleanly and purely about her knees. Responsibility--that's what these other women say they are afraid of! But it seems to me there's no responsibility like that of decreeing that young lives simply SHALL NOT BE. Why, what good is learning, or elegance of manner, or painfully acquired fineness of speech, and taste and point of view, if you are not going to distill it into the growing plants, the only real hope we have in the world! You know, Miss Paget," his smile was very sweet in the half darkness, "there's a higher tribunal than the social tribunal of this world, after all; and it seems to me that a woman who stands there, as your mother will, with a forest of new lives about her, and a record like hers, will--will find she has a Friend at court!" he finished whimsically.

OPTIONS FOR REDUCING While thrift stores such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army can be a convenient way to initially let go, many other outlets exist and are often more appropriate for usable items. Here are some examples: • Amazon.com • Antiques shops • Auction houses • Churches • Consignment shops (quality items) • Craigslist.org (large items, moving boxes, free items) • Crossroads Trading Co. (trendy clothes) • Diggerslist.com (home improvement) • Dress for Success (workplace attire) • Ebay.com (small items of value) • Flea markets • Food banks (food) • Freecycle.org (free items) • Friends • Garage and yard sales • Habitat for Humanity (building materials, furniture, and/or appliances) • Homeless and women’s shelters • Laundromats (magazines and laundry supplies) • Library (books, CDs and DVDs) • Local SPCA (towels and sheets) • Nurseries and preschools (blankets, toys) • Operation Christmas Child (new items in a shoe box) • Optometrists (eyeglasses) • Regifting • Rummage sales for a cause • Salvage yards (building materials) • Schools (art supplies, magazines, dishes to eliminate class party disposables) • Tool co-ops (tools) • Waiting rooms (magazines) • Your curb with a “Free” sign

The fifth was a blond man wearing a navy peacoat and standing with his hands in his pockets. He did not smile or point or make faces. He was staring at Laura. After a few minutes during which the stranger’s gaze did not shift from the child, Bob became concerned. The guy was good looking and clean-cut but there was a hardness in his face, too, and some quality that could not be put into words but that made Bob think this was a man who had seen and done terrible things. He began to remember sensational tabloid stories of kidnappers, babies being sold on the black market. He told himself that he was paranoid, imagining a danger where none existed because, having lost Janet, he was now worried about losing his daughter as well. But the longer the blond man studied Laura, the more uneasy Bob became. As if sensing that uneasiness, the man looked up. They stared at each other. The stranger’s blue eyes were unusually bright, intense. Bob’s fear deepened. He held his daughter closer, as if the stranger might smash through the nursery window to seize her. He considered calling one of the crèche nurses and suggesting that she speak to the man, make inquiries about him. Then the stranger smiled. His was a broad, warm, genuine smile that transformed his face. In an instant he no longer looked sinister but friendly. He winked at Bob and mouthed one word through the thick glass: ‘Beautiful.’ Bob

I used to have a daydream about myself—still have it, come to that. A ridiculous-enough daydream, though it’s often through such images that we shape our destinies. (You’ll notice how easily I slip into inflated language likeshape our destinies, once I wander off in this direction. But never mind.) In this daydream, Winifred and her friends, wreaths of money on their heads, are gathered around Sabrina’s frilly white bed while she sleeps, discussing what they will bestow upon her. She’s already been given the engraved silver cup from Birks, the nursery wallpaper with the frieze of domesticated bears, the starter pearls for her single-strand pearl necklace, and all the other golden gifts, perfectlycomme il faut, that will turn to coal when the sun rises. Now they’re planning the orthodontist and the tennis lessons and the piano lessons and the dancing lessons and the exclusive summer camp. What hope has she got? At this moment, I appear in a flash of sulphurous light and a puff of smoke and a flapping of sooty leather wings, the uninvited black-sheep godmother.I too wish to bestow a gift, I cry.I have the right! Winifred and her crew laugh and point.You? You were banished long ago! Have you looked in a mirror lately? You’ve let yourself go, you look a hundred and two. Go back to your dingy old cave! What can you possibly have to offer? I offer the truth,I say.I’m the last one who can. It’s the only thing in this room that will still be here in the morning.

Blast. This day had not gone as planned. By this time, he was supposed to be well on his way to the Brighton Barracks, preparing to leave for Portugal and rejoin the war. Instead, he was…an earl, suddenly. Stuck at this ruined castle, having pledged to undertake the military equivalent of teaching nursery school. And to make it all worse, he was plagued with lust for a woman he couldn’t have. Couldn’t even touch, if he ever wanted his command back. As if he sensed Bram’s predicament, Colin started to laugh. “What’s so amusing?” “Only that you’ve been played for a greater fool than you realize. Didn’t you hear them earlier? This is Spindle Cove, Bram. Spindle. Cove.” “You keep saying that like I should know the name. I don’t.” “You really must get around to the clubs. Allow me to enlighten you. Spindle Cove-or Spinster Cove, as we call it-is a seaside holiday village. Good families send their fragile-flower daughters here for the restorative sea air. Or whenever they don’t know what else to do with them. My friend. Carstairs sent his sister here last summer, when she grew too fond of the stable boy.” “And so…?” “And so, your little militia plan? Doomed before it even starts. Families send their daughters and wards here because it’s safe. It’s safe because there are no men. That’s why they call it Spinster Cove.” “There have to be men. There’s no such thing as a village with no men.” “Well, there may be a few servants and tradesmen. An odd soul or two down there with a shriveled twig and a couple of currants dangling between his legs. But there aren’t any real men. Carstairs told us all about it. He couldn’t believe what he found when he came to fetch his sister. The women here are man-eaters.” Bram was scarcely paying attention. He focused his gaze to catch the last glimpses of Miss Finch as her figure receded into the distance. She was like a sunset all to herself, her molten bronze hair aglow as she sank beneath the bluff’s horizon. Fiery. Brilliant. When she disappeared, he felt instantly cooler. And then, only then, did he turn to his yammering cousin. “What were you saying?” “We have to get out of here, Bram. Before they take our bollocks and use them for pincushions.” Bram made his way to the nearest wall and propped one shoulder against it, resting his knee. Damn, that climb had been steep. “Let me understand this,” he said, discreetly rubbing his aching thigh under the guise of brushing off loose dirt. “You’re suggesting we leave because the village is full of spinsters? Since when do you complain about an excess of women?” “These are not your normal spinsters. They’re…they’re unbiddable. And excessively educated.” “Oh. Frightening, indeed. I’ll stand my ground when facing a French cavalry charge, but an educated spinster is something different entirely.” “You mock me now. Just you wait. You’ll see, these women are a breed unto themselves.” “These women aren’t my concern.” Save for one woman, and she didn’t live in the village. She lived at Summerfield, and she was Sir Lewis Finch’s daughter, and she was absolutely off limits-no matter how he suspected Miss Finch would become Miss Vixen in bed.

Ah yes, the people concerned. That is very important. You remember, perhaps, who they were?’ Depleach considered. ‘Let me see-it’s a long time ago. There were only five people who were really in it, so to speak-I’m not counting the servants-a couple of faithful old things, scared-looking creatures-they didn’t know anything about anything. No one could suspect them.’ ‘There are five people, you say. Tell me about them.’ ‘Well, there was Philip Blake. He was Crale’s greatest friend-had known him all his life. He was staying in the house at the time.He’s alive. I see him now and again on the links. Lives at St George’s Hill. Stockbroker. Plays the markets and gets away with it. Successful man, running to fat a bit.’ ‘Yes. And who next?’ ‘Then there was Blake’s elder brother. Country squire-stay at home sort of chap.’ A jingle ran through Poirot’s head. He repressed it. He mustnot always be thinking of nursery rhymes. It seemed an obsession with him lately. And yet the jingle persisted. ‘This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at home…’ He murmured: ‘He stayed at home-yes?’ ‘He’s the fellow I was telling you about-messed about with drugs-and herbs-bit of a chemist. His hobby. What was his name now? Literary sort of name-I’ve got it. Meredith. Meredith Blake. Don’t know whether he’s alive or not.’ ‘And who next?’ ‘Next? Well, there’s the cause of all the trouble. The girl in the case. Elsa Greer.’ ‘This little pig ate roast beef,’ murmured Poirot. Depleach stared at him. ‘They’ve fed her meat all right,’ he said. ‘She’s been a go-getter. She’s had three husbands since then. In and out of the divorce court as easy as you please. And every time she makes a change, it’s for the better. Lady Dittisham-that’s who she is now. Open anyTatler and you’re sure to find her.’ ‘And the other two?’ ‘There was the governess woman. I don’t remember her name. Nice capable woman. Thompson-Jones-something like that. And there was the child. Caroline Crale’s half-sister. She must have been about fifteen. She’s made rather a name for herself. Digs up things and goes trekking to the back of beyond. Warren-that’s her name. Angela Warren. Rather an alarming young woman nowadays. I met her the other day.’ ‘She is not, then, the little pig who cried Wee Wee Wee…?’ Sir Montague Depleach looked at him rather oddly. He said drily: ‘She’s had something to cry Wee-Wee about in her life! She’s disfigured, you know. Got a bad scar down one side of her face. She-Oh well, you’ll hear all about it, I dare say.’ Poirot stood up. He said: ‘I thank you. You have been very kind. If Mrs Crale didnot kill her husband-’ Depleach interrupted him: ‘But she did, old boy, she did. Take my word for it.’ Poirot continued without taking any notice of the interruption. ‘Then it seems logical to suppose that one of these five people must have done so.’ ‘One of themcould have done it, I suppose,’ said Depleach, doubtfully. ‘But I don’t see why any of themshould. No reason at all! In fact, I’m quite sure none of themdid do it. Do get this bee out of your bonnet, old boy!’ But Hercule Poirot only smiled and shook his head.

Then one evening he reached the last chapter, and then the last page, the last verse. And there it was! That unforgivable and unfathomable misprint that had caused the owner of the books to order them to be pulped. Now Bosse handed a copy to each of them sitting round the table, and they thumbed through to the very last verse, and one by one burst out laughing. Bosse was happy enough to find the misprint. He had no interest in finding out how it got there. He had satisfied his curiosity, and in the process had read his first book since his schooldays, and even got a bit religious while he was at it. Not that Bosse allowed God to have any opinion about Bellringer Farm’s business enterprise, nor did he allow the Lord to be present when he filed his tax return, but – in other respects – Bosse now placed his life in the hands of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And surely none of them would worry about the fact that he set up his stall at markets on Saturdays and sold bibles with a tiny misprint in them? (‘Only ninety-nine crowns each! Jesus! What a bargain!’) But if Bosse had cared, and if, against all odds, he had managed to get to the bottom of it, then after what he had told his friends, he would have continued: A typesetter in a Rotterdam suburb had been through a personal crisis. Several years earlier, he had been recruited by Jehovah’s Witnesses but they had thrown him out when he discovered, and questioned rather too loudly, the fact that the congregation had predicted the return of Jesus on no less than fourteen occasions between 1799 and 1980 – and sensationally managed to get it wrong all fourteen times. Upon which, the typesetter had joined the Pentecostal Church; he liked their teachings about the Last Judgment, he could embrace the idea of God’s final victory over evil, the return of Jesus (without their actually naming a date) and how most of the people from the typesetter’s childhood including his own father, would burn in hell. But this new congregation sent him packing too. A whole month’s collections had gone astray while in the care of the typesetter. He had sworn by all that was holy that the disappearance had nothing to do with him. Besides, shouldn’t Christians forgive? And what choice did he have when his car broke down and he needed a new one to keep his job? As bitter as bile, the typesetter started the layout for that day’s jobs, which ironically happened to consist of printing two thousand bibles! And besides, it was an order from Sweden where as far as the typesetter knew, his father still lived after having abandoned his family when the typesetter was six years old. With tears in his eyes, the typesetter set the text of chapter upon chapter. When he came to the very last chapter – the Book of Revelation – he just lost it. How could Jesus ever want to come back to Earth? Here where Evil had once and for all conquered Good, so what was the point of anything? And the Bible… It was just a joke! So it came about that the typesetter with the shattered nerves made a little addition to the very last verse in the very last chapter in the Swedish bible that was just about to be printed. The typesetter didn’t remember much of his father’s tongue, but he could at least recall a nursery rhyme that was well suited in the context. Thus the bible’s last two verses plus the typesetter’s extra verse were printed as: 20. He who testifies to these things says, Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!21. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.22. And they all lived happily ever after.

Three cats stood in the center of the camp, their fur frosted by the dazzling white light. “Who are you?” Graywing stammered. These weren’t RiverClan warriors, and she didn’t recognize them from Gatherings. She wondered how they had managed to get all the way into the camp without being challenged. The tallest of the strangers, hard-muscled beneath his brown tabby coat, dipped his head. “Greetings, Graywing,” he meowed. “My name is Runningstorm of WindClan. This is Wolfheart”—he nodded to the elegant gray she-cat beside him—“and our leader, Smallstar.” The third cat, whose tiny frame was covered in sleek black-and-white fur, looked at Graywing. His blue eyes were friendly as he mewed, “We have traveled far to see you.” Graywing looked from one cat to the other. “I don’t understand. Has something happened to Fallowstar?” Smallstar shook his head. “Fallowstar is fine. We are the cats who would have been.” Graywing stared at them in horror. The image of three terrified bundles, falling one by one into the churning river, filled her eyes. “You are the kits who drowned,” she whispered. Wolfheart bent her head. “That is so. Come, we have something to show you.” She turned and led the way across the clearing toward the nursery. Graywing followed without having to tell her paws what to do; they seemed to be carrying her on their own. Runningstorm nosed aside the bramble that was draped across the entrance to the nursery, protecting the precious cats inside. “Look,” he urged Graywing. Oh, StarClan, let our kits be all right, Graywing prayed as she poked her head inside. Had the WindClan kits returned to punish her by hurting the youngest RiverClan cats? The den smelled warm and milky, and enough moonlight filtered through the branches for Graywing to see Hayberry curled around Wildkit and Minnowkit, who snuffled gently in their sleep. Hayberry’s flank rose and fell in time with her kits’ breathing, and although her eyelids flickered when Graywing looked at her, she didn’t stir. Graywing pulled her head out. “They’re safe,” she breathed. Smallstar looked surprised. “Of course. Did you think we’d hurt one hair on their pelts? Kits are the most special part of a Clan. They are the warriors who will defend their Clanmates in moons to come, the hunters who will find food even in the coldest leaf-bare, the cats who will have kits of their own to pass on everything they have learned. A Clan that has no kits might as well be dead.

cotton wool, decided that it was not good to eat, ran all round the table, sat up and put his fur in order, scratched himself, and jumped on the small boy’s shoulder. “Don’t be frightened, Teddy,” said his father. “That’s his way of making friends.” “Ouch! He’s tickling under my chin,” said Teddy. Rikki-tikki looked down between the boy’s collar and neck, snuffed at his ear, and climbed down to the floor, where he sat rubbing his nose. “Good gracious,” said Teddy’s mother, “and that’s a wild creature! I suppose he’s so tame because we’ve been kind to him.” “All mongooses are like that,” said her husband. “If Teddy doesn’t pick him up by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he’ll run in and out of the house all day long. Let’s give him something to eat.” They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the veranda and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then he felt better. “There are more things to find out about in this house,” he said to himself, “than all my family could find out in all their lives. I shall certainly stay and find out.” He spent all that day roaming over the house. He nearly drowned himself in the bathtubs, put his nose into the ink on a writing table, and burned it on the end of the big man’s cigar, for he climbed up in the big man’s lap to see how writing was done. At nightfall he ran into Teddy’s nursery to watch how kerosene lamps were lighted, and when Teddy went to bed Rikki-tikki climbed up too. But he was a restless companion, because he had to get up and attend to every noise all through the night, and find out what made it. Teddy’s mother and father came in, the last thing, to look at their boy, and Rikki-tikki was awake on the pillow. “I don’t like that,” said Teddy’s mother. “He may bite the child.” “He’ll do no such thing,” said the father. “Teddy’s safer with that little beast than if he had a bloodhound to watch him. If a snake came into the nursery now–” But Teddy’s mother wouldn’t think of anything so awful. · · · Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast in the veranda riding on Teddy’s shoulder, and they gave him banana and some boiled egg. He sat on all their laps one after the other, because every well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a house mongoose some day and have rooms to run about in; and Rikki-tikki’s mother (she used to live in the general’s house at Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki what to do if ever he came across white men.

Having seen her endure nine months of discomfort during pregnancy and the horrendous pain of childbirth, I could hardly believe my ears when she told me she wanted to have a second child. Now a seasoned pro, I was thrilled to help her again. And together we went through it all once more. As her children grew from infants in cribs to toddlers in nursery school, I picked them up from school, helped with birthday parties, and babysat, to give my friend much-needed afternoon breaks.

if anyone else comes after your friends, you know what you have to do. Crush them. Make them an example that no one will forget. Hellequin’s turned into a nursery rhyme to be told to naughty children—you need to make sure it’s the adults who start checking under the bed.

Carolyn Bartholomew who visited her at Kensington Palace three days after William was born recalls: “She was thrilled with both herself and the baby. There was a contentment about her.” The mood was infectious. For a time Charles surprised his friends by his enthusiasm for the nursery routine. “I was hoping to do some digging,” he told Harold Haywood, secretary of the Prince’s Trust one Friday evening. “But the ground’s so hard that I can’t get the spade in. So I expect I’ll be nappy changing instead.” As William grew, stories filtered out about the Prince joining his son in the bath, of William flushing his shoes down the lavatory or of Charles cutting short engagements to be with his family.

Pickwick was bought by a man who had an earring and by a man with a luxuriant moustache and by a man who catalogued butterflies and by a man who had bought shark’s fins at the wharf to make soup and by a man with a beard who carried a radical newspaper who attended agitated assemblies and by a man in a scruffy coat, who wrote short pieces for magazines and by a man wheeling a barrow of exotic shrubs he would sell at his nursery. One of these had a brother who was a respectable alderman; the cousin of another was a priest; another played whist with a banker; the buyer of radical literature had a friend in the Whigs; the nurseryman knew a doctor and several lawyers; the man with the moustache had a friend in the senior ranks of the cavalry; the scruffy man knew several editors. There was also a little middle-aged hawker called Knox, recognizable on the city streets by his plaid jacket, though his pinched cheeks, pointed chin and combed red side whiskers ere never conducive to anonymity.

In the winter of 1932, when two friends picked him up from the Bronxville train station, he remarked sardonically, “I want to stop by the house for a minute, and check the nursery and see if there’s anybody new in the family.” He came out and exclaimed, “By God, there is!” (It was Teddy, born on February 22.)

Consider growing an eco-friendly lawn, instead of the conventional, perfect lawn, to keep your hens and soil their healthiest. Ecological seed mixes, which you can get at your local retail nursery or feed store, contain a variety of plant types, many of which might be considered weeds to a gardener who prefers a perfect monocrop of grass blades, but are an excellent, diverse source of greens for chickens to forage. An eco-lawn requires less maintenance such as mowing, and requires fewer resources like water and fertilizers. Clover, one of the most important plants found in eco-seed mixes, fixes nitrogen naturally in the soil and eliminates the need for fertilizers.

Lewis also reflects his own conviction about the nature of children’s literature, that no book can be said to be good for children unless it is also good for adults: “This is a children’s book only in the sense that the first of many readings can be undertaken in the nursery. … Only years later, at a tenth or a twentieth reading, will they begin to realise what deft scholarship and profound reflection have gone to make everything in it so ripe, so friendly, and in its own way so true.” He

Those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air. Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.

You’re a sadist,” I remarked. He backed out of the parking space and bolted out of the lot like a professional racecar driver. “Thank you.” “That wasn’t a compliment.” “It was, coming from someone with the rhetorical prowess of a nursery schooler. Nice job you got there. Cool friends, too.

In this review, Lewis also reflects his own conviction about the nature of children’s literature, that no book can be said to be good for children unless it is also good for adults: “This is a children’s book only in the sense that the first of many readings can be undertaken in the nursery. … Only years later, at a tenth or a twentieth reading, will they begin to realise what deft scholarship and profound reflection have gone to make everything in it so ripe, so friendly, and in its own way so true.

Often there’s no help in the home, but there are neighbors and friends and the people at nurseries and day-care centers. All of them help a child to learn to get along with all sorts of people and become more independent. Seeing people encourages him to make decisions for himself. When he sees his parents at his own special time of the day he enjoys them more than if they were underfoot all the time.

So?” I say, kneeling down on the floor and sticking Charade in the DVD player. “So you don’t have any friends. You don’t know what it’s like.” Mom unfolds one of Gran’s afghans and drapes it over the back of the couch. “That’s not true. Alex has friends.” Claire fists her hands on her hips. “Name one.” Mom’s face goes a little blank as she thinks about it. Then she says, “Paisley,” and smiles at me. “She sits next to you in Sunday School.” I turn my head to the side so she can’t see me grimace. Paisley isn’t exactly my friend. She does sit next to me in Sunday School, but we never speak. She’s weird, even for my standards. For one, she always wears flannel pajamas and hiking boots. To church and to school. And two? She always has a handful of mayonnaise packets in her backpack. Which she snacks on. During class. I shudder just thinking about the sound she makes sucking on those packets. “And what about Jensen?” Mom says. “He’s been your friend since you two were in the church nursery together.” I roll my eyes. “Mom, just because Paisley and Jensen are in my general vicinity at church and school doesn’t mean they’re my friends.” “See?” Claire says.“Jensen isn’t her friend. She just has that huge crush on him still.” I don’t even attempt to dispute it like I normally would. Claire’s like a pit bull when it comes to arguing. Once she sinks her teeth in, she doesn’t let go. And I don’t have the energy to spar with her tonight. Besides, it’s not like my crush on Jensen was ever a secret in this family. Even Pops knows about it. He used to pinch me right above my knee where it tickles, and if I laughed, it meant I was “boy crazy.” Boy crazy for Jensen Peters. I laughed every time, dammit.

All medications, including those in epidurals, reach your baby through the placenta, affecting his ability to find the breast, latch, and suck effectively after he’s born. Depending on how long the epidural was in place and the drugs used in it, these effects can last from a few days to a few weeks. Pain-relieving drugs reduce your own endorphins, which may increase your baby’s discomfort, both before the birth and after the birth, when more endorphins are passed on through your milk. Your baby may cry more. Or, without your natural endorphins, you and baby may feel “flatter” emotionally, making it harder for you to respond to each other. Epidurals can cause your temperature to rise, which raises your baby’s temperature. He may be sent to the nursery for observation and antibiotics in case he has an infection. And if an epidural or induction included hours of IV fluids, your normal breast and nipple shape may be distorted, making latching difficult even with skilled help. This can be hard information to read, but it’s what the research very clearly shows. As childbirth educator Linda Smith, IBCLC, comments, “If your friend tells you how she ‘loved her epidural,’ ask her how her first month of motherhood went.

Revolution, which is in the blood of Parisians, was not in the veins of the Viennese. In Hans's blood there was the Austrian amiability and the good manners learned in his nursery. He was not radical enough to come directly to final conclusions. Day and night, in his desolate prison barracks, while he was almost despairing of his coming home at all, he struggled to find a compromise. He found it in his decision to convince himself with his own eyes, as soon as he came home; the terrible reports reaching the prison camp might be exaggerated and aimed at convincing the prisoners that their camp was better than their home. But when he did see with his own eyes that it was far more terrible than anything he had heard, he did not allow himself any further evasion. Now at last he was ready for the final outcome. One of the first things to strike him was that people in Vienna did not realize what had happened, and it was like a slap in the face. They went about and expected to continue as usual. But there was nothing to continue! Vienna had been an imperial capital, and an imperial capital cannot do without an empire. But the empire no longer existed. Austria was the concept of a super-national nation uniting nationalities. The concept had been destroyed. “German Austria,” the little land with seven million inhabitants, carved out of an empire of fifty-five million, possessed neither money nor friends. Nevertheless, at St. Germain they had been cynical enough to pile the burden of a succession on them that had no basis for existence. Most incomprehensible of all to this returning prisoner was the attitude of Number 10. They were still calling die people begging in the streets “beggars,” because they either did not know or did not want to know that six out of every ten Viennese were compelled to beg and that Austria itself had been assigned a role which was nothing else than that of an international beggar. They carried on their businesses, continued to go to their offices, went on receiving their pensions.Revolution, which is in the blood of Parisians, was not in the veins of the Viennese. In Hans's blood there was the Austrian amiability and the good manners learned in his nursery. He was not radical enough to come directly to final conclusions. Day and night, in his desolate prison barracks, while he was almost despairing of his coming home at all, he struggled to find a compromise. He found it in his decision to convince himself with his own eyes, as soon as he came home; the terrible reports reaching the prison camp might be exaggerated and aimed at convincing the prisoners that their camp was better than their home. But when he did see with his own eyes that it was far more terrible than anything he had heard, he did not allow himself any further evasion. Now at last he was ready for the final outcome. One of the first things to strike him was that people in Vienna did not realize what had happened, and it was like a slap in the face. They went about and expected to continue as usual. But there was nothing to continue! Vienna had been an imperial capital, and an imperial capital cannot do without an empire. But the empire no longer existed. Austria was the concept of a super-national nation uniting nationalities. The concept had been destroyed. “German Austria,” the little land with seven million inhabitants, carved out of an empire of fifty-five million, possessed neither money nor friends. Nevertheless, at St. Germain they had been cynical enough to pile the burden of a succession on them that had no basis for existence. Most incomprehensible of all to this returning prisoner was the attitude of Number 10. They were still calling die people begging in the streets “beggars,” because they either did not know or did not want to know that six out of every ten Viennese were compelled to beg and that Austria itself had been assigned a role which was nothing else than that of an international beggar.

Then, one by one, I’d lost my friends to dinners with in-laws or decorating the nursery or the pleasures of a day at home.

For his part, Mark Zuckerberg has described Musk’s worries as “hysterical,” and indeed, a few weeks after the Tesla baron made public his fears, the Facebook baron announced that he was building a helpful AI to run his house. It would recognize his friends and let them in. It would monitor the nursery. It would make toast. Unlike Musk, Zuckerberg perkily explained, he chose “hope over fear.

Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, wondrously blest!