Kids, Husbands, & Writing Don't Mix

On Friday, I rushed to the post office to pick up a box from Rosebud Magazine. Ethan has been suffering from a cold, so he wailed on top of his lungs my entire drive into town. I only had time to rip open the box and browse quickly through a copy of the magazine that contained my first creative nonfiction publication before getting on the highway. I was in a rush to surprise my husband with something (yes, I'm purposely being obscure here, because it's not really that important in the context of my rant) he really needed for his studying. Kyra had to be picked up from daycare along the way, so pretty much it would be several more hours before I would have time to savor the publication.

After searching for Thomas at his work and discovering he had already left, I had to drive to UAA's Consortium Library with both kids to drop off my special study gift. Ethan was still screaming and I had to feed him and entertain Kyra. I did make Thomas extremely happy with the effort I made to drop off his gift, especially since he was having an awful day at work. As we said our goodbyes, I remembered the magazine. "Oh, I have one more gift for you," I said, then openned the passenger side front door. In slow motion, I watched the magazine slip out of the car and drop with an awful splash into a thick mud puddle. Great...I thought, there goes $8.95 and yes, I had to pay for my copies of the magazine. Thomas tried to rescue it, but the mud sucked the magazine in like quicksand. We extracted it and tried to towel it off, but it was ruined.
Then today, Sunday, I had made my way through four or five essays and stories in the Rosebud Magazine, reading it while feeding Ethan or making dinner for the fam or washing dishes or doing laundry or playing with Kyra. Somehow, I lost track of the magazine. Kyra looks up at me and says, "Mommy, I have to go pee." I don't know why she always asks me before going, but as usual, I say, "Go. Go. Go. Hurry!" So she ran off down the hall and then a few minutes later, came back, without pants on, holding something in her hand, saying, "Uh. Oh. Mommy I broke it. Wet."

And there in her little hands was another $8.95 gone! Again I tried to rescue it, but who wants to keep a magazine that got peed on...yes, she managed to pee on the cover and through the middle...I don't know what she did.

But I really hope that this trend isn't any indication of my future writing endeavors.

Skaterchick

So I've been meaning to post the latest on Kyra's skateboarding frenzy. This girl absolutely LOVES skateboarding. She doesn't know how to do it very well and she won't let Mommy show her anymore (because we took a terrible tumble the other day). But she sure knows how to pose:

And then, she wanted Ethan to try it out:

"Hey dude, this sucks..." Ethan says.

"Hey man, much better. Thanks sis!"

Kyra writes her name

Three-year-old (three months shy of four-years-old) Kyra is proud to announce that she wrote her name for the first time at school today!

Eight-month-old Ethan is now sporting one huge bottom front tooth which he uses to gnaw on everything. He has graduated from army crawling (which we were amazed to see the speed with which he could cover ground) to your normal kind. Unlike Kyra, he adores stuffed animals. His favorite one is a bear dressed up as a bunny.

Don't tell Jed

As some of you know, I am not a natural mother. I never think I am particularly good at this role, nor do I try too hard. Don't get me wrong...I absolutely adore my kids, but I'm a firm believer that my life goals shouldn't change just because I am a parent. And that's where I get into troubles like these...after an unproductive day where mostly I suffered from a miserable cold, I left the house in a hurry because I had to pick up Kyra and return to my house in time for my writer's group meeting. I loaded up my car (Jed's ol' Explorer) with Ethan, student papers to grade (you never know when you could squeeze some work in, at a stop light, in traffic, etc...), diaper bag and backed out of the garage.

Lately, we have to get out of the car to close the garage door because for some odd reason the remote only opens the door. Leaping out of the car to do precisely that, I realized that I forgot my jacket, so I ran into the house. The phone rang just as grabbed my jacket and I hesistated for a moment wondering whether it might be an important call. Normally, I would pick up the phone ( I know, terrible, huh?) or at least check caller id...but this time something urged me out the door. I ran through the garage and reached for the button to close the door, thinking about all the papers I had to grade by Wednesday, when I realized that my car was no longer where I left it. The car was backing down my driveway with increasing speed!

A million things ran through my head: someone's stealing my car, Ethan engineered his Great Escape, and the worse, perhaps, I didn't set the car in "park." Meanwhile, I was running as fast as I could, postholing through the snow barefoot in my crocs, screaming, "No, No, No." What were my options? Grab hold of the fender and pull with all my might? Throw my body behind the car? Or behind a wheel?

Thankfully, a little miracle happened. With pure adrenaline and fear, I managed to get into the moving car and saw that indeed I did leave the car in "reverse." Geez....what a horrible mother I am.

p.s. I tried so hard not to tell Thomas about this incident, but he had such a horrible day that I felt he needed perspective. Surprisingly, his only response was silence, and shaking his head from side-to-side for a very long time. His lips quivered somewhere between a frown and a smirk.

Earthquake

12:13pm I'm settling down to write for the first time today after settling Ethan down to sleep and my desk starts to shake. Growing up in Southern California, I'm not a newby to earthquakes. I've survived an 8 before where I was thrown across my dorm room, my legs cut by broken glass. But I also grew up with a mother, who forced us to live on the Queen Mary after quakes. She figured what could be safer than being on a boat. We neglected to tell her that the Queen Mary in particular was melded to the harbor because that way she couldn't scare us with every jingle of our chandelier, the clinking of glass, a pencil rolling off the dining table, anything that might indicate a quake. And so alone in the house, except for Ethan of course, I tried to calm myself. Okay, it's probably a heavy truck driving down Hiland Rd. Okay, my laptop is now shaking and the house is definitely creaking. Okay, this is certainly a quake and one that wasn't quiting anytime soon. I leaped out of my chair and hid under the doorframe to my office. Sorry, it's my Southern Californian quake drill. But then, the house gave another tremendous thunder and all my nerves already sensitized to my mother's fears let loose. I yanked Ethan from his nap (you have to understand that a mother doesn't do this unless she's desperate because those naps are so precious) and pressed him to my chest and returned to my doorframe. Panting. Another tremor...and then Ethan started to wail.

Of course, after that, nothing. Not even a phone call from the husband to check on me. It was a normal day in Alaska after all. A 4.7 20 miles north of Anchorage (that's about where I live). And there went my writing time! Argh....

Sneak Peek

Rosebud Magazine posted a sneak peek of the issue that "Love Food" appears in. It's not like I've never seen my name in print before...but somehow, with Ethan gnawing away at the computer wires (don't tell Thomas) at my feet and Kyra snoring downstairs in my bed, I am in disbelief at how this could happen at a time in my life where I thought my own desires and career goals will always rank secondary to being a mother, a role that doesn't come naturally to me. (Don't get me wrong, I love my kids more than I will ever admit.) As the little girl that hid under her covers reading The Hobbit by flashlight and dreaming of a day where I could write something as legendary, I feel a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe I can shake my fists at my dad and everybody else who said "you are a hopeless dreamer." I know its just a very very tiny step in the footsteps of being a writer, but hey, it's a step. What a relief! I hope I always remember how this feels. And now, I better go because I hear a ripping sound behind me and I see that Ethan tore off a strip of wood twice the length of his body from my bookshelf. Hmmm, how is that possible from such a little guy?