I’d better go check on everyone. The house is a little too quiet for 11:30 in the morning.

I’d turned down the TV so I could call Natlie and get her opinion on Max who’s still pulling his ears a week after starting him on antibiotics. She said I should call the doctor and now Max has an appointment for 4:15 this afternoon. I might see if Dr. Belvin will check Lucy’s ears too. So of course, since the television was on, Lucy was watching it. Higglytown Heroes. Lucy would watch TV all day if I let her. Not exaggerating. And Max after nursing a little and tugging some more on his ears is down for his second nap. He seems to do well with a second nap around 11. He’ll probably nap more than his standard hour BUT then won’t want to take a long nap in the afternoon which is what I’d prefer.

I finished The Cider House Rules on Wednesday and made Alan sit through the movie the same night. After seeing on the DVD case that it won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay, I was really looking forward to watching it but after seeing it was rather disappointed in it. I guess it has the same feel but I was surprised that John Irving himself played with the timeline a lot and completely ommited Homer and Candy having a baby together and then lying about it for 15 years. I mean, that was a pretty big deal and really added a huge dimension to their deception. Their decision to finally out themselves and tell the truth is the climax of the book in my opinion.

The other thing that bothered me about the movie was that Melony was completely left out. In the movie, Mary Agnes is the oldest girl in the orphanage and Homer has no sexual exploits before leaving St. Cloud’s. Without Melony, Homer is left looking a bit naive, despite his “near-perfect obstetrical and gynocological procedure.” Melony serves to initiate Homer into the relational side of sexuality and without her, Homer looks dumb and desperate when he finally makes a move on Candy. Melony is also the catalyst of Homer finally deciding to tell the truth about Angel’s parentage. Melony’s accusing Homer of not being anything special makes him realize that he has become something that he didn’t want to become.

Because Irving played with the original timeline in the screenplay, Homer and Candy’s betrayal of Wally in the movie looks more like a betrayal. In the book, they betray the memory of Wally by consummating their relationship while he is still MIA in Burma, having convinced themselves that Wally must be dead and it’s time to stop “waiting and seeing,” but in the movie, Candy just looks like a cheater. Sure, she’s needy, but Wally is still alive and hasn’t been reported missing in the first place. This discrepency makes Candy more unlikeable than in the book. Instead of Homer and Candy’s relationship being born out of Homer’s pure love for Candy and Candy’s grief and love for Homer, it’s more of a lust issue in the movie. And it didn’t make me sad to see Homer go back to the orphanage. Of course he should leave, he never had a real connection with Wally and Candy to begin with.

The book’s year before the war, during which Homer, Wally, and Candy are inseperable makes the eventual love triangle more believable and tragic. The 15 years after Wally gets back make Homer’s departure sad but necessary.

The book’s more refined plot and fluid prose makes The Cider House Rules one of my favorite reads . The movie disappointed me. Maybe I should have waited for the novel to settle and the details to be more blurry.

Higglytown is over. Lucy just got a timeout for hitting me. Max is crying. Back to mommyhood.

I’ve got a headache. And it’s growing worse by the minute. Lucy is napping and Max is cranky. If I let him chew on paper all day, he’d probably be happy, if not constapated. Fortunately, Alan is on his way home.

Right now, I’m in the middle of John Irving’s The Cider House Rules. I never saw the movie when it came out several years ago and had no clue what the book was about when I picked it up at the Really Big, Really Cheap, Really Good Book Sale last month. Since the paperback I have doesn’t have any description about the book except other people saying how great it is, I didn’t really know what it was about when I started. I had a fuzzy idea that it had something to do with abortion. It does.

I just thought of yesterday’s post when I saw that same silky nightgown on the floor. I gave it to Max and he immediately calmed down. My headache is diminishing.

But back to the book. I’m really enjoying reading it, to the extent that the pace of housework has been reduced from my regular crawl to a complete standstill. There are probably twenty things that I could/should be doing right now but am not. One strange thing about TCHR, is that I’m am half way through and just found out what the cider house rules are. I still have not figured out their significance.

Max is no longer happy with the silky nighty. Back to mommyhood.

Surprisingly, Max decided to take a really long nap around 10:30 this morning, so he’s not at ALL sleepy right now. He’s rolling around right now with a long satiny night gown of mine. It makes him happy. Without it he would be whining right now because of his ear infection, instead he’s contentedly sucking on his pacifier. Go Max.