Finally . . . We've Finished Reading 'The Half-Blood Prince.' Now Onto 'Deathly Hallows.'

*Warning -- If you haven't read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, don't read any more of this post unless you want the book's ending spoiled for you.*

It has taken The Spouse and I more than a year to read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince aloud to The Youngest Boy (who, by the way, gave me special permission to write about him in this post). We finally finished the 652-page opus last night all the way to its sad and dreary conclusion. Harry Potter, the boy whose parents were killed when he was just a baby (his mother while putting her body in front of his), had to watch as his mentor, his fierce protector, was killed. It was only a little more than a year after his godfather, who he was just getting to know, was also murdered in front of his eyes.

Dumbledore's funeral, the lump in Harry's throat, that dread that was weighing on the boy's chest as he broke up with Ginny in order to protect her and his realization that he was embarking on a quest that could very well lead to his own death, all of it was so very bleak. Black hole kind of bleak.

The Youngest Boy was, as one might well imagine, quite melancholy and surprisingly muted when I asked him what he thought about how the book ended. When I first read it, not having known ahead of time what happened to Dumbledore, I shed tears, mostly for Harry who had already suffered so many losses and was really truly alone, with the exception of his teenage besties, Ron and Hermione.

I'm curious as to how The Youngest Boy will react when he sees the film's version of this tale (the weakest of all the Potter films) and sees Dumbledore die. (The Girl fled the movie theater when that happened, so tearful was she. It broke my heart.) Watching that movie is on our "To Do" list for the school vacation week.

As we prepare to embark upon the journey of the 784 pages that constitute Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I'm likewise wondering how The Youngest Boy will perceive the darkness that saturates this final book, the long periods of despair and loneliness our fearless trio faces as they attempt to locate and destroy the remaining Horcruxes before Harry attempts to slay Voldemort.

For those of you who are keeping track at home -- or keeping tabs on my Harry Potter: Reading Out Loud Project page -- between The Spouse and I, we've read 3,395 pages of this series aloud to The Youngest Boy. Wonder if it'll take us another year to tackle the last installment.

Image credits: Amazon.

Quick Hits: Kids Review 'Harry Potter,' 'The Mentalist's' 1st Season, Outside Resistance & Poop In the Pool

Picket Fence Post Twins Review Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Yes, we Harry Potter addicts were among those who went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on opening weekend. We just had to as the anticipation had reached frenzied levels. The Eldest Boy and I went to see the movie on Saturday morning and The Girl accompanied The Spouse on Sunday morning to catch Harry Potter in all his glory. (The Youngest Boy is only on book six of the seven-book series – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – and we didn’t want to spoil his reading experience so he’s only seen movies one through five.)

I, personally, adored the movie. Cried four times, much to the shock of The Eldest Boy. What did my two resident Potterheads think of the cinematic finale of the series that has so influenced their childhoods? I wrote about their reactions over on CliqueClack Flicks. Check out my bibliophiles’ assessments here.

Learning The Mentalist’s Backstory

Back in May I wrote about how watching The Mentalist with The Eldest Boy has become “our thing.” After watching the dramatic, tension-filled season finale that month, we decided that we needed to go back in time, back to the first season of The Mentalist to find out the backstory about this whole Red John business.

So last night we started our journey and watched the first two episodes. We were stunned to see Eric Stonestreet, who plays the hilarious Cameron on Modern Family, playing a murderer who threatened the life of The Mentalist guy, Patrick Jane. So far, so good.

Outside Resistance

Okay, so it’s like a convection oven outside right now with 90+ degree heat (closer to 100 today), plus lotsa humidity. So I can understand why the kids don’t want to go outside and hang out in that soupy discomfort. That’s entirely reasonable.

But when the weather HASN’T made you feel like you’re walking through a pot of beef stew, I’ve been surprised to encounter enthusiastic resistance to my suggestions that they . . . wait for it . . . GO OUTSIDE. Oh, the horror!!

We have a trampoline, a basketball hoop, a badminton/volleyball net, rollerblades, a hockey net/soccer net, driveway chalk and playground balls (for Four-Square), footballs, Wiffle Ball stuff, scooters, bikes, a very battered pogo stick and a play structure complete with a little fort-like thing which affords them privacy. It’s like a kid amusement park here. And yet they still resist when I, seeking some quiet so I can write in my office without hearing "It's my turn!" "No, it's MY turn!" (*scuffle, scuffle*), suggest that they partake of those amusements . . . OUTSIDE. "Take a book outside if you don't want to play," I pleaded one day.

It has almost (I repeat, almost) made me want to do what essayist David Sedaris wrote that his mother used to do with him and his siblings when they were young: Shove them outside and lock the door. However I’ve not reached that point. Yet.

Poop in the Pool

This year we joined a summer swimming club, as we have for several years running. (Since I'm a lousy swimmer, it was important to me that my kids be strong ones.) I tend to take the kids to the pool in the late afternoons, depending on how much writing I’ve completed during the day, or The Spouse will bring them in the early evenings to give me a break.

Yet twice in the past two weeks, the kids and The Spouse have returned home early, spoiling the blessed peace in our domicile, because the pool had been evacuated because some kid pooped in it. Nothing's more of a summer buzzkill than poop in the pool.

Particularly vexing, last night The Spouse was swimming right near where said excrement was spotted on the pool floor. As soon as they came home, they all took showers.

Image credit: Warner Brothers.

Attempting to Exploit Potter Mania for Household Peace

Up until last week, we were a Three Strikes household . . . as in each kid could accrue up to three strikes a day for behaving badly. Upon receiving a third strike, a privilege would be revoked for the remainder of the day, say, watching TV, playing video games or going to a friend’s house. If the kid continued to misbehave, privileges would be revoked for the following day. (Frequently, though, I was a soft touch and allowed the kids to “earn away” the strike by being super good.)
However the Three Strikes technique had mixed results here in the Picket Fence Post household. Thus I decided to try a different tact this summer.


Image credit: Warner Brothers via Yahoo Kids

Capitalizing on the excitement regarding the release of the final Harry Potter film – and the fact that The Spouse and I are still doing our Harry Potter Reading Aloud Project with The Youngest Son – I went a different way. Instead of using the punitive Three Strikes system, I’ve decided to implement my own version of Hogwarts’ “House points” system. It works like this:

If a kid exhibits “good behavior” – a completely subjective determination made by either The Spouse or me – he or she gets a penny (or “House point”) deposited into his or her jar on the kitchen counter. Just like at Hogwarts, if someone behaves badly, he or she can lose one or more “House points.” At the end of the week, the child with the most House points gets to select a film for Family Movie Night. At the end of the month, the kid with the most points will be able to select a family activity (which needs parental approval) for a Saturday or a Sunday.

The first week yielded an absolute blizzard of good behavior. The kids were doing the dishes, taking out the trash, offering shoulder rubs, fetching my newspapers from the driveway, making me cups of tea. It was a pleasure to have such doting people around, even though I knew they were only in it for House points. But by the end of the week, The Girl realized that her twin brother had been outgunning her and protested, saying that kids shouldn’t be rewarded for “sucking up.” And she had a point.

Now, in its second week, there’s not so much a blizzard as there are intermittent flurries of good behavior, especially since we said that they shouldn’t overtly try to suck up to us. Plus, there’s been an uptick in the deduction of House points for bad behavior.

Maybe I should channel a bit more of the tough-minded albeit fair Professor McGonagall for the remainder of the summer.

Image credit: Warner Brothers via Yahoo Kids.

Need Advice About the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando

While all three of the Picket Fence Post kids are still really into all things Harry Potter -- and The Spouse and I are still reading the Potter series aloud to The Youngest Boy (we're on book six, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) -- we decided that we'd take a summer trek to the new portion of Universal Studios in Orlando dedicated to The Boy Who Lived: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I think I'm more excited than they are to step into the world of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, go to the Three Broomsticks for Butterbeer and stop by Zonkos Joke Shop. There are three big rides there, of which I think I'm likely to only partake of one, the "family" coaster otherwise known as the "Flight of the Hippogriff." (I'm not a big ride type of gal.) Though I fully expect that The Girl and The Eldest Boy will want to go on these rides multiple times.

Here's my question: For those of you who've already visited the Wizarding World, what recommendations do you have for us newbies?

Image credit: Universal Studios.

The Harry Potter Reading Out Loud Project

I've frequently mentioned on this blog -- as well as on my parenting blog that preceded this -- that The Spouse and I had been engaged in a multi-year effort to read the entire Harry Potter series aloud to our youngest son, currently age 9.

We've been at this since 2009 and have, to date, read 2,750 pages of the seven-book series to him. Oftentimes his elder siblings join us as they're fond of listening to the tale that they've likely memorized by now because they've read the books so many times that I've lost count.

Just this week we finally finished the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (my favorite of the series) and, as soon as I said, "The End," The Youngest Boy clamored for us to immediately start the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, despite the fact that it was past his bedtime. We acquiesced because, hey, he was asking to read a book. At least he wasn't asking for TV or video games.

Given that it has taken us what feels like forever to read this series -- we try to read it a couple times a week, but don't always get a chance to do that, particularly when youth sports and school stuff is pressing on our time -- I decided to chronicle the back end of our project with a new blog page called, cleverly enough, the Harry Potter Reading Out Loud Project. When we finish our reading sessions, I'll update what page of the book we're on and what's happening so you can follow along with your favorite Potter moments.

Image credit: Amazon.com.