September 25th

Tiff brought to my attention that for those of you that skim these *ahem* I mean, read them quickly, you might have missed that my second book is out.  So this time I'm putting it at the beginning. 

Hey, y'all, my second book is out. :)

******

Charlotte and Elliot love each other.  Except, you know, when they're awake.  Or breathing.  No, really, it's not that bad.  They love each other dearly.  But they fight almost any time they occupy the same space for more than about 27 seconds.  A catastrophic escalation of hostilities is pretty much guaranteed to occur each and every day.  Neither one of them sees the virtue in a measured or proportional response.  I'm just grateful they don't have nuclear access codes.  If they did, we'd be screwed.

That being said, I knew it was going to be hard on Charlotte when Elliot went to preschool.  I mean, sure, she could actually play with one of the eighteen million train sets in the house without her brother freaking out for two whole hours, but she was going to miss him.

I just wasn't prepared for just how traumatic this event was going to be.

Almost every day, when Elliot goes to preschool, I am blessed with two hours of a tear streaked Charlotte asking for him.

"I want my brudder!"
"Your brother is in school, sweetie."
"Less go get him."
"We can't go get him, he needs to finish.  Would you like to go to the library?"
"No.  I want my Ellyiot."
"Well, we'll go get him in a little bit."
"Less go now."
"We can't go now.  Would you like a snack?"
"NO! I WANT MY ELLYIOT!"

This will pass, right?

****

I'm doing some research for book 3, currently looking into naturally occurring antiseptics, and colloidal silver came up on the list (of course.)  In fact, the quote attached to it is as follows:

"...a powerful antibiotic and many organisms can only live for a few minutes in the presence of silver."

All of a sudden I had this blinding thought chain:  Silver really does kill things.  Werewolves!  Guess myth makers knew more than they thought they did.  Wait, silver is ubiquitous now.  MAYBE WEREWOLVES WERE REAL AND WE KILLED THEM ALL WITH THE PERVASIVE PRESENCE OF SILVER!

Like peanut allergies. 

Come with me on this.  You know you want to.

:D

****

Hah!  I have been rereading my old life in the slow lane emails.  Boy howdy, I didn't know anything, did I?  Of course not.  I still don't know anything, but now I've stopped even pretending.  Also, I read something in which I said I was never going to dress a girl in ruffles, or in pink.

Do you know how many of Charlotte's clothes have ruffles on them?  I couldn't give you a precisely accurate percentage, but I'm gonna go with "a fair amount."  Also, pink?  Like half her clothes are pink!  What was I thinking?  I dunno.  I'm an idiot.

****

Here is a sound piece of advice for all parents out there:

Whatever you do, don't watch hospital dramas.

You know what?  Those things are full of sick kids.  And no matter how many times your spouse turns to you and says "Our babies will be fine,"  (thanks, babe)  the truth is that if you are unlucky enough to have a sick kid you just have to cross your fingers and HOPE.

Here's another great piece of advice:  Do not dwell on things during your mid day slump.  It will get you no where good.

****

The kids and I are in slow recovery from excessive screen time.  What happened?  Well, it's been a tough summer for me.  Summers in general tend to be crazy, with all the vacationing and traveling and what not.  It ought to be relaxing and fun, but most years, while I find it fun, I don't find it terribly relaxing.  This particular year there were moments of fun, but it turns out that the changes in my life have made me a little... I dunno.  Not depressed, but certainly moody.  Maybe brooding?  I don't think I have words.  Whatever the case, I have not been my typical self, cycling through happy and snarky as my hormones moved me.  Rather I've just been a bit down, and not dealing with things.  Dishes have been low on my priority, as has laundry, sweeping, cleaning the toilet, and in general being a responsible little domestic.  And I haven't been good about keeping the kids away from the TV/computer.  All I wanted to do was sit around and read, or watch TV, and I wasn't feeling hypocritical enough to impose limits on them that I wasn't willing to maintain for myself.

This has changed, however.  Not my mood, my mood is still skirting the dark parts of town, trying not to get mugged by any of my inner demons.  But in the great tradition of my protestant heritage I have decided that maybe sucking it up and getting on with life is the best way to encourage my mood to creep out of the slums, and back into the brightly lit main thoroughfares of my psyche, where the carnival rides are playing their relentlessly cheerful tunes.

And so, as one of many steps I'm taking to get it together, I have cracked down on the screen time.  Charlotte gets to watch TV while Elliot is in pre-school, and Elliot gets to do TV or computer after Charlotte goes to bed at night until his bed time.  That's it.  And holy bejeezum crow, have they been cranky about it.  I totally understand, and am not really upset with either of them, but I long for the day when the limited TV time is normal to them, instead of a fresh injury.  Yesterday Elliot told me he didn't want to go to pre-school, he wanted to stay home and watch TV with Charlotte.

Eye-roll.

I have to say, though, when they're NOT whining about the TV, they seem to be in a much better mood.  So I guess there's hope for the future.

****

This time of year always makes me think of the National Balloon Rally.  For those of you who never lived in Statesville, the National Balloon Rally is held every year at an old airforce base outside Statesville.  North Carolina weather being what it is, sometimes the balloon rally is cold and rainy, and sometimes it's sunny and warm, and sometimes it's bright and chilly.  You never know.  But, unless the weather's really hideous, every sunrise and every sunset for three days hundreds of hot air balloons launch off the air strip out at the base.  In between launches you can wander around the fair, where there are game booths, food booths, and craft booths, not to mention my favorite, the fund raising booths, which were inevitably humiliating (pay $10 to have your friend put in jail.  Pay $10 for three chances to dunk them in a vat of water.  Whatever.)

The Balloon Rally was a staple of my childhood, we ALWAYS went.  And the Wednesday before it began, our elementary school got out of class early, and one of the balloon teams came and launched their balloon from our sports field.  This was both awesome, and more awesome, because hot air balloons are fantastic and I also got to miss almost an hour of school.

The last years we were in Statesville, we actually ran booths at the fair.  We had a food booth, where we sold spring rolls we'd spent the last month making in our kitchen, and we had a craft booth, where we sold tie-dye, as well as condom fashion accessories.

(Yeah, you heard me right.  Someone donated a giant batch of bad condoms to the shelters.  Because what poor people really need are unplanned pregnancies, I guess.  Anyway, we had a ton of condoms we couldn't give out, for obvious reasons.  So my mom made jewelry out of them.  People loved it.)

I'm not sure if my family liked running booths and the fair.  I loved it.  For one thing, I only ever worked very short shifts in the booth.  Most of the time I was free to run around the fair.  I found all the best booths (like the ones where they were giving away free chocolate bars.  The people working the booth were working in hour long shifts, so Tiff and I went back every hour and got more chocolate.) and orchestrated a few coups (like when my friends and I pooled our money to have this guy who made fun of us locked up in the jail cell for half an hour.)  I even saw my band director dunked twice.  It was a good time.

And fall always reminds me. 

Hope everyone is having a lovely yearly transition to the cold times, and enjoying whatever rituals are yours, this time of year.

August 26th

Booooook glorious booooook!  My second book is going to be done soon.  Then I shall see if it was mere freakish chance or if I am capable of repeatedly producing something that other people enjoy.

Keep your fingers crossed, while I'm finishing it up.

****

Someday I hope to write books of a different genre.  I've got two high fantasy plots simmering in the back of my mind, and three non-fictions.  Unsurprisingly, two of these potential non-fiction books are intended to be humerous.  One you've basically all been reading since Elliot was born.  It will be titled: Life in the Slow Lane; One woman's thoughts on the motherhood racket.  Or something like that.

The other will be something along the lines of "Jessica Woodard's guide to being a half-assed homemaker."  Catchy title, right?

On my front porch there is a child's wading pool.  Once upon a time it was filled with sparkling clear water.  Then my daughter (along with her best friend) decided that really, water is nothing unless it is bounded by shining sand, creating a place where earth meets ocean, and sky burns with bright blue fire above.

Of course, their manual dexterity is poor, so instead of creating a mini-beach they just dumped half the sand box in the pool.

Then they started adding other things. 

A Ritz cracker box, which, due to lamination, was curiously willing to float for almost two days before it began sinking.  It's now fully submerged, and I'm half convinced that only the external pressure exerted by the water is keeping the box from dissolving into minute particles and drifitng down to join the sand.

A half drowned doll.  This baby is both loved and cherished, so I can only assume that Charlotte remains unaware of the negative impact floating face down in a pool of water for two days may have on the human body.

There's a spoon and a sieve and a couple of cups, not to mention at this point there are almost certainly any number of dead bugs floating in my poor child's wading pool.

And do you know what I have done about this?

Nothing.

A while ago Waxor poured a little bleach in there, to make sure the bacteria didn't get out of control.  Other than that, I let the kids play.  I mean, I've tried dumping the sand out.  They just put it back.  And I could retrieve the doll but they're only going to submerge her again.  The Ritz Cracker box is already a goner, so I'll throw it away when they're done playing with it.  And I don't care about the bugs.

Maybe the secret to being a half-assed homemaker is infinite practicality mixed with just a dash of slovenly disregard for hygiene?

I dunno.

****

Lemme run a scenario by you.

When Waxor is ill, he stays home from work.  He ignores me, and ignores the kids, and either spends his day in bed or (if he feels well enough) sitting in front of his computer.  This sounds exactly like what you're supposed to do when you're sick, right?

When _I_ am sick, Waxor goes to work.  I am left at home with the children.  Just like I am EVERY OTHER DAY OF MY LIFE.  I do not go to bed.  I do not spend the day on the couch reading, or watching TV, or on the computer.  Because the children are still children, and they still want or even NEED something from me roughly every two minutes.  So when I am sick I just live my life, only in misery because I feel like crap.

Now, does that sound fair to you?

Does it?

****

Today I feel bad.  Remember "You Can't Do That on Television"?  Remember the slime bucket?  I pretty much have the entire contents of that slime bucket, endlessly pouring out of my face.

The children have responded to this by putting very concerned looks on their faces, and couching their demands in sweet and loving ways.

"Mommy, can I have a pancake?"
"Okay."  I haul myself to the kitchen, where I discover that my husband, who is destined to burn in the fiery pits of Tartarus, has eaten the last of the pancake batter.
"I'm sorry buddy, Daddy ate the last of the pancake batter.  Pick something else."
"But Momma," comes his sweetly reasonable voice, "you can MAKE more pancake batter."
I have, at this point, limped back over to a chair and seated myself.
"No, Buddy, not today."
"Why not?"
"I feel bad."
"Well, Momma, maybe you could just stir slowly."
"No, buddy."
"But, Momma, I really, really, really want a pancake."
I turn to my son with misery plain on my face. "Elliot, please, just pick something else to eat."
He sits quietly for a moment.
"Momma, I think you need some medicine."
"You're probably right, dude."
"And then you can make me a pancake."

****

Charlotte has become the most adorable thing on the planet.  Now, you shouldn't take this to mean that my son is any less cute than she is.  Not at all.  But he has been a walking, talking, source of adorablation for quite some time now.  Charlotte has just now come into her most cutest phase, and it is flabberghasting me.

She sings.  This was only to be expected.  She is, after all, my daughter.  But it has been many, MANY moons since I got the same kind of reaction from my vocal antics that Charlotte receives on a regular basis.  We were in the grocery store the other day, and passing by the Lucky Charms.  My eagle eyed child spotted the star on the box, and immediately launched into one of her favorite ditties.

"Twinkle, TWINKLE, LIL star!
Howayewunner wha'choo ARE!
Up a buh da wurl so HIGH!"
Pause
"Hi! Hi Mommy!" 
"Hi Chaz.  What were you singing?"
"LIKE A DI-MUN IN DA SKY!"
It should be noted, that what she lacks in lyrical accuracy, she more than makes up for in volume.  and my fellow shoppers, far from being annoyed at the noise, seem to go out of their way to tell me how very cute she is.  One woman actually melted into a little puddle in the produce aisle the other day.  My daughter slayed her with her rendition of "I love you, you love me."

Waxor's favorite is the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  I think he likes the dance that goes with it.  My personal favorite is Baa, baa, black sheep, because the master, the dame, and the little boy down the lane all get their own personal verses.

Also, the black sheep is apparently in possession of "Wuhl."

In addition to singing, she is enamored of her brother.  Every morning she rises before him, and every morning when he comes downstairs he is greeted the same way.

"ELL-YOT! Das my brudder, das my BRUDDER!  I lub you, Ell-yot!"

No wonder he has a god complex.


Right, so, I'm gonna send this, and then send another, because I KNOW some of y'all just skim these things.