Laugh so hard you'll pee your pants

This didn't happen to me. I didn't write it. But it's so funny I just had to paste it and post it. The original post came from here: http://momwriterslitmag.typepad.com/

My little guy, Cade, is quite a talker. He loves to communicate and does it quite well. He talks to people constantly, whether we are in the library, the grocery store or at a drive-thru window. People often comment on how clearly he speaks for a just-turned-3-year-old. And you never have to ask him to turn up the volume. It's always fully cranked. There have been several embarrassing times that I've wished the meaning of his words would have been masked by a not-so-audible voice, but never have I wished this more than last week at Costco.

Halfway, through our shopping trip, nature called, so I took Cade with me into the restroom. If you'd been one of the ladies in the restroom that evening, this is what you would have heard coming from the second to the last stall:

''Mommy, are you gonna go potty? Oh! Why are you putting toiwet paper on the potty, Mommy? Oh! You gonna sit down on da toiwet paper now? Mommy, what are you doing? Mommy, are you gonna go stinkies on the potty?''

At this point I started mentally counting how many women had been in the bathroom when I walked in. Several stalls were full ... 4? 5? Maybe we could wait until they all left before I had to make my debut out of this stall and reveal my identity.

Cade continued: ''Mommy, you ARE going stinkies aren't you? Oh, dats a good girl, Mommy! Are you gonna get some candy for going stinkies on the potty? Let me see doze stinkies, Mommy! Oh...Mommy! I'm trying to see In dere. Oh! I see dem. Dat is a very good girl, Mommy. You are gonna get some candy!''

I heard a few faint chuckles coming from the stalls on either side of me. Where is a screaming new born when you need her? Good grief. This was really getting embarrassing. I was definitely waiting a long time before exiting. Trying to divert him, I said, ''Why don't you look in Mommy's purse and see if you can find some candy. We'll both have some!''

''No, I'm trying to see doze more stinkies...Oh! Mommy!''

He started to gag at this point.

''Uh - oh, Mommy. I fink I'm gonna frow up. Mommy, doze stinkies are making me frow up!! Dat is so gross!!''

As the gags became louder, so did the chuckles outside my stall.. I quickly flushed the toilet in hopes of changing the subject. I began to reason with myself: OK. There are four other toilets. If I count four flushes, I can be reasonably assured that those who overheard this embarrassing monologue will be long gone.'

'Mommy! Would you get off the potty, now? I want you to be done going stinkies! Get up! Get up!''

He grunted as he tried to pull me off. Now I could hear full-blown laughter. I bent down to count the feet outside my door. ''Oh, are you wooking under dere,Mommy? You wooking under da door? What were you wooking at? Mommy? You wooking at the wady's feet?''

More laughter. I stood inside the locked door and tried to assess the situation.''Mommy, it's time to wash our hands, now. We have to go out now, Mommy.'' He started pounding on the door. ''Mommy, don't you want to wash your hands? I want to go out!!''

I saw that my wait 'em out' plan was unraveling. I sheepishly opened the door, and found standing outside my stall, twenty to thirty ladies crowded around the stall, all smiling and starting to applaud.My first thought was complete embarrassment, then I thought, where's the fine print on the 'motherhood contract' where I signed away every bit of my dignity and privacy? But as my little boy gave me a big, cheeky grin while he rubbed bubbly soap between his chubby little hands, I thought, I'd sign it all away again, just to be known as Mommy to this little fellow.

Here's to useless arts degrees

This weekend, I actually put my two university emphases to work. If you didn't already know, I studied music and French in school. A lady from France showed up at church, and didn't speak a lick of English. So I volunteered myself to translate for her, which was interesting considering I haven't spoken French for years and years. Sometimes I would blank on the stupidest words. I couldn't for the life of me remember the French word for small. I think it's in the dictionary somewhere close to stupid. (Don't tell me. I know the word for small is bête, OK?)
I also got to be in a flute choir concert. This is a very fun ensemble I get to be part of, with usually about twelve flute players, complete with piccolo, alto, and bass flute. I never thought I'd get to do that after I graduated, and so I feel really lucky.
So, I get to use both music and French in my post-university life. I'm assuming the paycheck for all my years of study is still in the mail.

Too much of a good thing

I've done a lot of reading about writing. Mostly to procrastinate writing. It's been useful in some ways. I've learned a lot about the publishing business. But I think the craft part--stuff on how to refine your writing and make it better--has been a waste of time.
You either know how to write or you don't. Everyone has a unique style, and some people's writing might have the same consistent weakness. But if you have certain problems in your writing (like waxing poetic instead of using your narrator's voice in my case), then what you really need is for someone else to read your writing and tell you what's lacking so you can fix it. Some author you've never met isn't going to know what you need to work on. They might write about what they need to work on. They might even have some good general advice. But it didn't do much for me.
The problem is that I became way too self-conscious about my writing. I'd want so desperately to avoid the writing pitfalls they mentioned that I'd go the other way. In my first manuscript, for example, I worried that it was too dialogue-heavy. So I cut out lots and lots of scenes. And then people would read it and tell me, "You should make this a scene."
It's good to have an editor. But when you're the editor, and you're your own worst critic, sometimes you can go too far.

Big Blossoming Boy

I decided to take pictures of our cherry tree and Liam was climbing in it. So we did both at the same time. He was posing for me, so I asked him if he liked having his picture taken. "As long as you're the one taking the pictures," he said. If you're my Facebook friend, there are lots more of these on my profile.

Top Five YA Books

Here are some of my favorite books and authors of young adult literature. We'll see if I can keep it down to just five. There are, of course, many other authors whose books I want to read and just haven't gotten to yet.
1. Laurie Halse Anderson. My three favorites of hers, Catalyst, Speak, and Wintergirls, are all the kind of books I love best. I like fantasy, I like historical fiction, and I like mysteries, but these kind of contemporary issue-driven first-person narratives are the kind of stuff that I just eat up. I love books that make me think, laugh, and cry.
2. Shannon Hale. I've enjoyed everything of hers I've read. I'd have to pick Princess Academy as my favorite because of one particular aspect--girl power! I love female protagonists who improve not just their own lives, but the lives of the people around them.
3. Cynthia Voigt. I loved the whole Tillerman cycle. I read them as a teenager, and I still think they are really good stuff. Dicey's Song and A Solitary Blue are her best, in my opinion.
4. Lois Lowry. I thought The Giver was just about as perfect as a novel could get. Gathering Blue was also really good.
5. J.K. Rowling. So everybody and their dog has read Harry Potter. Maybe those canines have good taste. I wouldn't say they are close to perfection, but I can't help but admire Rowling's ability to create an entire world and a culture around one skinny, bespectacled boy. And I can reread them when I'm sick.
6. Tim Wynne-Jones. I'm totally in awe at how he uses a single striking image (like a piano dangling from a helicopter in The Maestro) to create a novel.
7. Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game made my jaw hang open. The premise seems impossible, that a six-year-old boy is chosen to save the world, yet you believe it when you read it. There's some deep stuff in this one.

I can think of more, but I'll stop here. I have to work on my own masterpiece sometimes, too.

Worst Parent in the World Award

I nominate myself. OK, I don't really believe that, but the way I beat myself up about my parenting mistakes, you'd think I did.

Kyle ingested a few extra vitamins today. I don't really know how many, but by the time I called Poison Control, counted all the vitamins, and checked the date of purchase, I figured out it was probably less than 10. Don't laugh--the lady at Poison Control made me count them. I'm sure no one else's kid inhales poisonous stuff, right?

I was playing with Meredith in the next room when Kyle came in going crunch, crunch with his teeth. He's very good about reaching high places. He just pulls that chair right over to where he wants to go. I think I might have left the vitamins on the counter. Or in the pantry. I don't even know. Now, if I hadn't been playing with Meredith, I probably would have been feeling guilty about neglecting her. But anyhoo...

By the time I'm finished discussing how many vitamins Kyle might have consumed, I'm the one being consumed. With guilt. Because I'm picturing my poor baby turning blue and taking his last breath, as I always do when the slightest little thing happens. Of course nothing bad happened. Kyle had no symptoms at all. But it could have gone wrong. And that's where my imagination takes over. I have a really good imagination for disasters that never happen. I should put it to good use and create some fiction with it.

And I swear I will never have any more children and never leave any of my children alone in a room again because obviously I can't take care of the kids I have. It would be better for them to have their mama hovering overhead than lying sick in a hospital bed, right?

Of course nobody else ever makes colossal, could-have-killed-them mistakes. I'm sure I'm the only one who does. I'm the one whose story will end up in a parenting magazine with the caption "It happened to me and it could have been prevented".

Isn't that the worst fear of all? Your child gets injured or dies because of you?

People sometimes act like motherhood is a no-brainer job because so many women have done it, because it doesn't require an education, etc. But I think with as many things that can go wrong that don't, it's amazing that so many mothers have raised their children to adulthood. If you haven't had any near misses with your own children yet, beware. This parenting gig is not for the fainthearted.

The virtue of patience

I admit to being addicted to the advice columns in the paper. Here's an interesting one I read not too long ago:

Dear Abby: I have recently enjoyed the success of having my first book published. However, this achievement has begun to change my life in ways I hadn't expected.
I am a somewhat shy and reflective person by nature, preferring to live quietly rather than being in the spotlight. Having the freedom to spend time with my family and to enjoy the little things in life is more important to me than success. However, since my book's debut, I have felt myself pulled into a different sort of world.
I am meeting more "important" people than I can remember, and I am struggling to keep up. My inbox is inundated with questions, appointments and invitations. I am expected at speaking events and signings that don't feel entirely authentic. I know I would be an idiot not to embrace these opportunities, but I am becoming more and more uncomfortable and stressed. Maybe this just isn't me.
How can I be who I am without feeling like a disappointment to those who believe in me?
— Not What I Expected in the Midwest

At first, I wanted to laugh, because there are so many wannabe authors I know who would give their right arm and their right leg, too, to be published. If I were Abby, I might have written something like "Count your blessings and suck it up" in reply.
But, thinking a little more about it, even success isn't always easy. My friend Sydney, who recently published her first novel, is really glad that she's published now rather than at an earlier stage when her kids were little. If she needs to be out late, work all day, or travel, she can do it because her girls are old enough to manage.
If I, on the other hand, had to always be out speaking and signing, I don't know how I would do it at this stage. Pumps are wonderful and all, but my kids are still little enough to constantly need me.
This doesn't mean I'll stop writing. But the publishing industry is notorious for making authors wait, and wait, and wait. I'm just saying that waiting isn't a bad thing.

And, speaking of patience...I recently watched a movie called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Due to complications from a stroke, a magazine editor becomes completely paralyzed. He can't move or speak. All he can do is blink. One of his therapists communicates with him by using the alphabet and getting him to blink when she gets to the correct letter. Eventually, he decides to call an editor to remind her that they had had a book contract before his paralysis. And so, he dictates his entire memoir by blinking. By the end of the movie, even I had the letter sequence memorized. So when I think writing a book takes me forever...

Think, think...

Does anybody else remember Winnie the Pooh and how he used to think out loud? "Think, think..." I don't think out loud. I think by writing.

I've been working on Novel 2. It doesn't have a title yet. I'll call it Rocky when I'm referring to it since that's the main character's name. Here is a brief history of the manuscript:
-wrote 30 + pages
-decided the novel started way before that
-started over; wrote almost 100 pages
-asked writing group to critique first chapter
-got pregnant; discovered long-term thought was impossible when having constant contractions
-abandoned novel writing
-had baby
-wrote magazine articles
-went back to Rocky

Post-baby, I reread what I had written. And I decided I'd have to do some editing before I took it any further because everything was so inconsistent (that's what happens when you try to write the same novel twice). So I rewrote, (which in this case involves lots cutting and pasting). I'm still revising, and I'm only in the second chapter right now. It's amazing how newborn babies slow the writing process down.
But here's the amazing thing. As I've been plodding through, the characters and the plot have been plodding through my brain. Yup, you've got it folks, the mommy brain is thinking again. And since the book is on the brain, I get ideas. And they aren't necessarily related to what I'm writing at the time. I could be thinking about whether or not to move a paragraph in the second chapter, and suddenly I have an idea for tying things together in the last chapter. Or I move a subplot around and then I just know how that plot will resolve itself at the end.

I'm liking this writing thing. My word count isn't rising very fast, but my brainpower is. Not bad for a momma of very little brain.

These pictures speak for themselves