June Naptime Notes

Late night book clubs, Flannery, and road trips

It’s usually 11:30 pm by the time the last friend wanders out onto the front porch, shouting a goodbye behind her. The first time that book club went that late, I remember looking down in shock, unable to remember the last time I’d been up so close to midnight—New Year’s Eve, maybe? But now late nights are the third Thursday tradition.

Once a month, I help Joseph through the first part of the Langr littles’ bedtime routine and then head downstairs as friends come through the door. We sit in the front room, drink tea, and catch up. About an hour in, one of us will pop the cork on a bottle of wine as we talk about the book we’ve read that month. But the book is just the starting point.

We laugh so hard we cry over stories about our kids, our pets, and the meme someone saw that week. But we also share the hard parts of motherhood and marriage. Although all the women who come to book club are mothers, we’re not all in the same season of our motherhood. Some moms are pregnant with their first while others have just celebrated their youngest graduating college. There’s a camaraderie for those of us going through the same season together but also wisdom from the women who have been-there-done-that.

What brings all of us together every month, despite all of our busy schedules and struggles to find time to read between toddler tantrums and work schedules? How do we have hours full of conversations, time flying until one of us looks down at the clock and realizes she won’t be home before midnight?

Well Read Mom.

I’ve always enjoyed reading and have fond memories of falling asleep under the covers with a flashlight and book in hand. But when I became a mom, my reading life petered out. I would pick up a parenting book or a book on the interior life now and then, but reading with my littles running around the house seemed impossible. And if I did find a quiet moment, I felt selfish for using it to read instead of catch up on the pile of laundry or play with my kids who were yelling for me from the other room.

I knew there were good books out there and that they probably included the ones I skipped reading in high school, but I didn’t know where to start. I’d try the classics, but without anyone to discuss them with or encourage me through the dry parts, I ended up reading the bestsellers that looked good when I was browsed the new section at the library.

When I was pregnant with Maeve, I went to a Well Read Mom book club meeting. It was actually in my current neighborhood, although we hadn’t moved here yet. I remember an evening of deep conversation, the kind that I hadn’t had with others since my college days.

But then Maeve was born and I stopped going to the meetings. I got lost in the late nights and constant exhaustion of new motherhood and didn’t see how I could possibly read. Each month, the reminder email would come through my inbox and I wouldn’t make time for the book. Eventually the woman leading the group removed me from reminder emails—and for good reason! I only went to a few of the meetings and hadn’t RSVP’d for at least a year.

It wasn’t until I interviewed Marcie Stokman on the Letters to Women podcast back in 2022 that I rediscovered Well Read Mom and decided to start my own group. I invited a few friends over and we dove in. The group has grown and changed over the past two years, but one things remains a constant: Well Read Mom book club evenings are something I anchor to each month.

My kids wake me up the morning after book club at 6am and I stumble past a sink full of dirty teacups, wine glasses, and snack plates on my way to the coffee maker. But despite the fact that I’m running on little sleep, I feel totally alive and ready to start the day—and eager to start the next book, already looking forward to next month’s late night book club.

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Are you nodding along, wanting to read more, but having no idea on how to take the first step to becoming a reader? Are you hungry for more deep connections, true leisure, and a sense of meaning and hope? And . . . can reading more books really be the answer to all of those longings? 

You can find out more about Well Read Mom here, including a directory to find whether there’s a group near you! If there isn’t, can I recommend starting one? You can also listen to my conversation with Marcie Stokman, the founder of Well Read Mom, here on the Letters to Women podcast. That conversation was what finally gave me the encouragement I needed to start a book club two years ago!

I think the last Friday of the month is becoming a Naptime Notes tradition at this point. I’m typing up the last few pieces of this newsletter while the girls play with Maeve’s Playmobil vet clinic upstairs and William gores through a stack of board books beside me. This afternoon we’re headed to our parish for the Eucharistic Pilgrimage and then I have my fingers crossed for a quiet evening

Read on to see which books have been our favorites this month, the songs we’re listening to in our listening room and the sweetest picture of Maeve lounging at the bookstore—I’m going to go pour a(nother) cup of coffee.

Songs I’m listening to on repeat:

The books and magazines keeping me up at night:

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Every summer, I pull this book off my shelf annually for a re-read. When I first read the book with my book club, I was amazed at how a woman who raised a family in the 1950s could perfectly capture my experience as a mother today. A few friends shared with me how they first read this book in highschool, but Anne’s words would never have struck me as a teenager as they do now in this season of life. Each time I re-read it (I’m just wrapping up my third read through), something new strikes me about Anne’s writing on mothering, marriage, and creativity.

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor. We’re getting ready for a vacation in Florida with the kids and a few nights ago I combed our bookshelves for a read to compliment the trip. I pulled a collection of Flannery’s stories of the shelf and flipped through to this short story of hers. What I didn’t realize is that it’s all about a family on vacation to Florida who get murdered on the roadside by an escaped convict. In typical Flannery style, grace gets the last word. If you’ve tried Flannery’s novels or short stories only to wonder what in the world you were reading, can I suggest going the audiobook route? I thought Flannery’s characters were harsh and her writing was humorless. But it turns out that I just didn’t have a Southern accent in my brain while reading. After listening to the audiobook of Wiseblood a few summers ago, I quickly changed my mind and reach for Flannery’s writing often.

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. Book club read! This is my first time reading Berry’s fiction, but I love his poetry and non-fiction so I’m looking forward to this audiobook.

The books I’m reading (and re-reading!) with the Langr littles:

Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel. We’ve recently rediscovered Frog and Toad. My kids love the characters and I laugh out loud at Toad’s curmudgeonly comments. I think Toad is a melancholic who is constantly getting pulled out of his perfectionism by his sanguine and patient friend, Frog. Worth a revisit if you haven’t visited these classics in a while!

Strega Nona by Tomie de Paola. Magic pasta pots! Big Anthony! We’ve read this book over and over in the past month and each time the pasta pot boils over, Ada shrieks in terror. What will they do? I’m looking forward to surprising the kids with the Yoto version of this book on our upcoming road trip.

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert. “Every year, mom and I plant a rainbow…” A perfect compliment to our own garden, which is starting to burst with oranges, reds, and greens this month.

Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner. This is such a fun book to read outloud! The cadence is perfect, my kids love clapping along to Skippyjon’s songs, and there’s some fun humor that my kids miss but I find hilarious. Although we’ve read many of the books in this series, this first one is our favorite.

This afternoon I’m picking up about fifteen books from the hold shelf, many of them from this booklist of seaside picture book recommendations! I’m really looking forward to re-reading this one and reading this one for the first time with the kids this weekend.

A question for you:

We’re planning a long road trip this summer with our kids and decided to focus on enjoyment over efficiency. That means that we’ll take way longer to get to the destination, but we’re looking forward to frequent stops, not a ton of time in the car each day, and exploring fun new aspects of many different cities.

When we don’t have three kids five and under, this might change. But for now, give us all the potty breaks and rest stops with parks. How about you?

Are you taking a road trip this summer? Do you have any favorite tips and tricks for road tripping with little kids? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

An eclectic collection of links to some my favorites this month:

This garden basket is on the top of my birthday list // So is this wool dress // Better than playdough and clay, this is favorite for all of my kids this month // This bread recipe is my go-to when I want a sourdough-esque work without the starter // Looking forward to this literature based Theology of the Body curriculum with my kindergartner in the fall // Try on glasses kits! For kids!

A quote I’m pondering:

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own' or one's 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's real life is a phantom of one's imagination.

― C.S. Lewis

A poem to leave you with:

I’ve never done this before, but this month I’m sharing poetry that I’ve written! This was first published in

Tsh Oxenreider

’s periodical, and now I’m sharing it here. Enjoy Troublesome Comforter:

I open the window to let the cool breeze 
rifle through the stacks of neglected papers on my countertop.

And that’s when I see him.

My neighbor.
Opening his front door.
Hunched over, shirtless. 
His rage against the cancer in his bones has reduced him to a skeletal shadow.
His flannel pants a few inches too short after too many dryer cycles.

He takes a few steps, descending his porch steps precariously
and sinks with a sigh 
at the base of a rosebush that he brought with him from their first house,
back when they were full of dreams and hopes for the future together.

Now he sits alone.

The mournfulness of it all
is almost enough to make me walk away.
To shake my fist at the Maker who seems to be deaf to the cries of the sick.
Who seems to have forgotten this son of his.

And that’s when I see him.

Bent down, beside my neighbor.
Fingernails caked with dirt.
The thorns of the rosebush circle round his head.
A tear dripping off his nose and landing with a splash into the dirt at his feet.

Now my eyes have seen him.
And I reconsider what I have said.
Shutting the window, I turn back to my papers.
I have spoken, but did not understand;
things too marvelous for me, which I did not know. 

And that’s all I have for this month! I hope you’re staying cool wherever you are (it’s triple digit heat index for days here in Kansas). As always, thank you for reading along!

In His Sacred Heart,

Chloe