The Things They Say

It's hard to know where some of these doozies come from, and yet, there they are. Fully articulated sentences or ideas, usages of the English language that you never thought possible, bursting forth from your children's mouths in all their glory. I never know what to do when faced with these gems. Part of me wants to laugh, of course. But then, that only encourages behavior or phrases I want to quash. Now I know why my grandmother had such a cough when we were young. It was an excellent way to choke back inappropriate laughter.

Son's new favorite epithet, which he trots out whenever he needs an exclamation of surprised annoyance: "Crapfish!" I have no idea where he came up with that combination; neither Husband nor I say "crap!" -- which is a word you'd think he would have had to have heard somewhere. But he says he "just thought of it in my mind."

Words you don't really want to hear coming from the back seat of the car: "Do NOT put my hat out the window. DO NOT. It will blow away." "It won't blow away," she snorts in response to his demand. "It's not even windy out." Thereby engendering terrible visions in my mind's eye of children losing the limbs that they insist on hanging out of car windows on the grounds that "nothing will happen; nothing can touch my hand except the air."

Loudest shouted phrase coming from the bathroom recently: "Mama! MAMA! Come and see my Eiffel Tower poop!!"

Inane questions they ask each other, thereby cracking each other up: "Are poop and pee your best friends?"

Nicest thing I've heard from the back seat of the car recently: (while Daughter was crying) "Do you want me to hold your hand? Here. Give me your hand. There. Is that better?" And it was better. She stopped crying. "That was a very kind thing to do," I said over my shoulder to Son. "Yes, he responded. We like to hold hands."

Craziest part about the things they say: I now find myself hissing out "Crapfish!" under my breath in place of harsher expletives. It's an oddly satisfying swear.

Tea Party Day

Scene: Wednesday morning. 8am. Flurry of getting dressed.

On a normal morning, there is always the possibility of tears and lamentations. "But I don't want to wear that shirt. I want to wear my Power Rangers sweat shirt" (which is two sizes too small) or "But I neeeeed my dog bluejeans to match with this shirt" (yes, he knows brand names by logo only). And then, of course, Daughter chimes in, "I don't want these socks. I want my stripesy socks." Or some such.

But this past Wednesday, we had the added pressure of dressing for Tea Party Day. On the last Tea Party Day at school, there was much after-party drama in regards to the fact that Son had shown up in an ironed shirt but no tie. All of the other boys had worn ties.

Experienced mother that I am, I made Son plan his outfit the evening before. We had it all chosen, hanging up, ready to go -- madras plaid long-sleeve button down shirt, the good blue jeans, still inky indigo, with no holes in the knees, the belt.

Then comes the morning.

"I want to wear that shirt, but also a necktie."

"But you don't have a necktie that matches that shirt. That shirt is plaid. Your neckties only go with a white shirt."

"Well, then I'll wear that shirt under a white shirt. And a necktie."

"Honey, you can't wear one button-down shirt under another button-down shirt. It won't be comfortable." (It will look insane is not a valid reason not to wear something, in his style lexicon. Comfort, however, is King.)

"Well, okay then. I will just wear the white shirt...And a necktie."

Gigantic sigh from me. For, you see, we'd already done 27 rounds of this the night before, and he'd settled on the madras plaid, which was good for me because his ties all needed to be shortened. Not finding anything appealing (read: anything that looked remotely like his father's nice silk ties) in the children's section, we had allowed Son to choose an adult tie for the upcoming wedding of his uncle. I've made a tie before. It is easy enough to see how to shorten an adult tie by cutting off the widest end, reusing the lining to line the new end, etc., etc., so that the tie is properly proportioned for a four-foot-tall person. But I had NOT done that work the night before because he had chosen the madras shirt. Which would look horrendous with the two ties we have laid by, ready to shorten for him.

I tried to reason with him. I tried to change his mind. My Son, however, is nothing if not stubborn about his fashion choices.

And so, having promised that I would shorten the tie at some point, I found myself making good on that promise on Wednesday morning at 8am. It wasn't exactly what I'd planned to do before work that morning, but it was going to have to happen sometime.

And he did look very nice in the end, what with the belt, and the inky jeans, and the hair gel that Daddy helped him apply.


When he came home that day, I asked him how Tea Party Day had gone.

"Pretty good," he replied. "But none of the other kids wore a necktie except me and Noah."

Of course.

Who knew the primary lesson of pre-school was irony?

Raise a Glass to the Happy Couple!

There's love in the air in one little corner of the blogosphere. SOMEONE just got proposed to, and, finally, after HOURS of waiting, where we all held our breaths and tapped our keyboards impatiently, we have learned that she said YES. It was a proposal of the romantico-goofy, sweetly serious, innovative kind that would totally appeal to MommyPie (I'm guessing), and involved the building of a new site in order to post the proposal online, the hiding of a ring, the conspiracy of friends, and... well, if you're curious, here's the Proposal 2.0 itself. I'd say she's found the perfect man for her.

Marcy, of The Glamorous Life Association put together the site for the proposal (good secret keeping!), and she put up a post of her own with a linky for stories about weddings, love and marriage, in the hopes of leading MommyPie down the trail of crumbs to her own happy ending. Marcy specifically asked for stories with some tidbit of advice. Hmmmm....

In the spirit of being completely delighted for MommyPie, who deserves whole heaping platefuls of happiness, I was thinking about what the wedding stories I could tell. Unfortunately, the wedding stories in my family are more like a series of Three Stooges wedding sketches than an Ideal Dreamy Day. Things that can happen at your wedding, according to our family, include:

(1) your dog running away, and staying gone for a whole week, thereby canceling your little minimoon (the honeymoon long-weekend that would have to do for a temporary honeymoon because the real trip will be occurring in six months when you get to go to New Zealand).

(2) your sister getting stomach flu and having to quietly duck out during the ceremony (after handing off your bouquet to another bridesmaid), so that she could go be sick.

(3) the entire wedding party (yes, including you the bride and your brand new groom) and half the guests coming down with what appears to be stomach flu 12-24 hours later, leaving your sister feeling horribly guilty about passing it around -- only to discover a few days later, thanks to cultures done at the hospital on your very sick brother-in-law, that it was actually FOOD POISONING. And then WHEE! the venue comps nearly your entire wedding bill (as well they should, after poisoning half your guests and yourself).

(4) your sister (the baker) and your other sister (the helper) and her new beau (the devoted) stay up nearly all night long making your wedding cake -- which turns out gorgeous, if only the wedding party could keep their eyes open long enough to see it.

Why am I telling these stories on such a happy occasion? Is it because I want MommyPie to know how lucky she is NOT to be marrying into our family, where we cannot apparently throw a wedding without a bride getting a speeding ticket on the way to the ceremony? Not exactly (though she may well count her lucky stars for that anyway).

It's because the point really is: there are only a few things you need for a wonderful wedding -- and everything else can go as wrong as wrong can be, and you'll still have fond memories. To my mind, those things are: a few great black-and-white photographs of sheer bliss in action, a room full of friends and family who love you dearly, and a really good cake.

And then I got to thinking. Honestly, those things that make the perfect wedding also make the perfect marriage. You need a little documentation, so you can look back on the happiest moments and bask in those memories. You need to surround yourself with people who love and support you no matter what. And, periodically, you need to eat really really really good cake.

I'm pretty sure MommyPie, who has had more than her share of life's ups and downs, knows this. But I think it's worth saying "aloud" as it were because it's easy to forget that simplicity, and the smallest things, are the most potent.

I write this wishing MommyPie and The Boy lasting love and happiness, many days worth documenting in photos, and occasional bites of fabulous cake. I already know she's surrounded by loving friends and family, based on all the comments on the proposal post, and I already know she's found a man worthy of her (no small task!). Life is good.

CONGRATULATIONS, my friend!! I wish you bliss.

2009: The Year of the Pratfall

The other day, I stood at the top of the stairs and watched my five-year-old roll and tumble all the way down to the tile floor of the hallway. It would have been horrifying if it weren't so darn funny.

He started at the top with an exaggerated, "Whoa! wu-wu-Whoaaaaaa!" and did a shoulder roll down a few steps, then a somersault, then slid down on the seat of his pants. As he hit the turn in the stair case, he rolled himself onto his other side, so that he could bump down a few stairs, twisting as he went, and then skidded face-first, arms outstreched like a Major League player sliding into home plate, until he slowly came to a rest with his palms on the tile. He looked up at me and grinned, arms still outstretched like Superman. I tried to look stern but only succeeded, I think, in looking regretful that I hadn't had a video camera on hand to capture the astonishing grace and choreography that was his staged tumble. Honestly, if I could have sent the footage to Jackie Chan, I think I might have been able to get Son an internship as a stunt man.

A few days later I was in the walk-in closet hanging up clothes. I happened to be facing the narrow doorway. Out of the corner of my eye, I registered Son's feet as he began to walk past the doorjamb, and then suddenly, as if a monster had grabbed his rear leg while he was walking, the lower half of his body jerked backwards, and his flailing arms and torso came flying into view. "Ahhhh!" he shouted in mock frustration while his body thudded to the floor. "Who tripped me?!?!"

I nearly fell over, myself, laughing.

Of course, then he had to repeat the gag at least 25 more times. It really was the perfect staging arena, since the doorway exquisitely framed the comedy, and the narrow hallway leading up to the closet provided an excellect run of carpeted space in which to tumble.

After his last fall, he outstretched his arms, fingers scrambling for purchase on the carpet, as he slowly maneuvered himself backwards. "Helllllp meeeeee! Helllllpppppppp!" he cried, while the invisible monster pulled him offstage. "Helllpppppp! It's eating meeeeeee!" His agonized face looked up at me, eyes smiling, and his fingers left tracks in the carpet pile.

I am sorry to report, I could not save him fast enough. The monster got him.

But I have preserved the finger tracks for posterity.

"Dances on Tables": My English Boyfriend

As I made my way to the restroom in Panera the other day, BAM! it hit me -- the smell of his cologne. Tuscany. I hadn't thought of the name of it in years, and then I smelled it in the air, and the name came to me in an instant; I looked it up online, and there was the familiar rust box with black stripes.

Oh, I wish I could tell you his name too. My English boyfriend from so long ago. It was such a very British name. Four names, actually, since he had two middle names. Here, I'll make up a name to try to give you a sense of it ... Let's just call him Algernon Jasper Julian Thwaite, shall we? Algy, for short.

Algy was suave and sophisticated, with a blond pompadour and a penchant for reading poetry. (In truth, he was as suave as every young man with proper British accent seems to an American college student who is intoxicated with the heady sound.) He drank red wine at dinner and black-and-tans at the pub. He taught swing dancing classes in our college cafeteria on Tuesday nights -- classes that cost 50p per evening, and that upwards of 40 or 50 students would attend regularly for the coolness and fun factor alone.

I love to dance. I loved this class. Very quickly, I also loved the instructor.

We ended up dating for three years. It was easy at first, since I was doing my study abroad year. Then I went back to my US university after half a summer spent writing the longest letters it was possible to send for the price of a single overseas stamp. (Fifty cents would get five 5 x 7 pages, written on both sides with my favorite roller ball pen, to England in a matter of a few days.) We were together for nearly three weeks at Christmas, when I went to visit his family, and then spent the entire spring term connecting through letters. We wrote daily (a page or two each night, until the letter was full, then off it went, and the next one started). He came to visit for the summer armed with a work permit.

Of course, in the interim, we'd made the disastrous decision that it would be okay to date other people if we wanted to, since we were so far apart for such a prolonged period.

In retrospect, dating other people was only a marginally worse idea than dating each other, but at the time, I could not see how bad he was for me.

The great inanity of this relationship was that all the tears and fights occasioned by the jealousies over doing precisely what we'd agreed we should be allowed to do kept us together far longer than we should have been. If we'd simply allowed the thing to wither on the vine, I have no doubt it would have done so. But because we "cheated on each other," we both felt this overwhelming urge to fight to win back what we were threatened with losing -- and so we clung tenaciously to the sinking ship as if it were the only flotation device in the whole giant ocean rather than being the very millstone that was dragging us both down.

Finally, that torturous summer was at an end, he went back to England, and we went back to letters. Letters were far safer because we could control every aspect of our relationship within them: we could each reveal only what we wanted the other to see, and we could frame events through the perspectives that would preserve the illusion, both for ourselves and for each other, that we were still in love.

Of course, we weren't.

Or at least, I wasn't. Not really. I was in love with the idea of being in love. I was in love with the romance of a British boyfriend, with the exhilaration of finally dating someone who was a great dancer and loved to take me dancing, with the eloquence of an epistolary relationship. But romance, eloquence in ink, and memories of a few great nights in London jazz clubs don't keep you warm during a dark midwestern snowstorm. And a boyfriend whose own insecurities tend to manifest in asserting his superiority over other creatures (particularly over his girlfriend, and particularly in terms of the thing about which she is most insecure: her looks) can be a somewhat hard flame to keep alive.

Hence it is not surprising that once I started graduate school, I found myself attracted by other men, other possibilities, other intellects. Over the course of my stormy first year in graduate school, we "dated other people" occasionally, he came to visit from England over Christmas, I told him I could not see him any more, he went back to England, I phoned him to be sure he understood that our break-up was final, and he proposed. Thankfully, I did not say yes.

And then, in the great irony of our lives, the man whom I'd spent three years struggling to date from across an ocean got a full scholarship to do graduate work in film studies at the very university where I was just starting my PhD -- and six months after I'd broken up with him for good, he moved into an apartment two blocks from mine.

Then, no matter what I did, I couldn't get away from him. My friends thought it was hilarious to report back to me things like, "I saw Algy at the bar last night. They starting playing some swing music over the radio, and he jumped up on a table and started dancing!" The truth was in there somewhere, though I cringed to recognize it.

And yet, despite all of the heartache, the tortuously prolonged death of the relationship, I could not get rid of the box of letters. I still have them, packed away. A giant stack of letters, still faintly scented with Tuscany, layered into a box with a handful of poetry he once typed out for me, and a few black-and-white photographs of us that I took and printed myself. I haven't opened the box in years, and I'm not sure I ever will. I have no real desire to relive those years, and yet there is something within me that cannot throw them away either, all those words that were once so central a part of my life.

My one regret is that I did not, Victorian style, request that on our breakup he return all the letters I'd written to him. It embarrasses me to imagine that those gushing words of love live on in someone else's box of the past. And yet, I suppose, that is what composes a lifetime: moments of thrilling back flips on the dance floor, regrets, longing phrases quietly whispered in private letters, and moving on.

It is the moving on that makes us strongest, I think. And it is the momentary susceptibility to the lingering hint of once-familiar cologne that makes us human.

Being of Two Minds

Perhaps it is because I am closer to 40 than 35 that my body is becoming desperate. I don't know. It is certain that desperation is somewhat excessive, given that I already have two healthy, joyous, mischievous, chattering children. And yet it is the simple truth: my body wants me to get pregnant again.

For a while, my mind and heart wanted this too. Or at least toyed with the idea. I thought and considered, did a lot of soul searching and wondering. Because I have two sisters very close to me in age, three seems like a reasonable number of children to have in a family.

Husband's logical arguments against this are, impeccably, logical. This is not to mention his irrational fear of my accidentally getting pregnant again, a dread so deep-seated that I think if I offered him an ultimatum option: another child or we turn our (small) backyard into an elephant sanctuary, he would choose the elephants. But irrational preferences for pachyderms aside, the logical reasons not to have a third include that our family is so nicely balanced at present: one girl/one boy, two children/two parents. There are enough hands to go around in a parking lot, enough laps to go around on movie night. We can tag-team at bedtime and, in years to come, at soccer games and trombone recitals. We can afford the children we have, and in doing so, we can imagine (assuming the Dow doesn't actually hit zero) retiring before we are completely shriveled.

To hear Husband tell it, another child would not simply be another set of diapers and another child to help through college; it would be an assault to our equilibrium. In fact, there are days when I completely agree with him. To be sure, those are days on which my equilibrium is pretty far gone anyway, thanks to the incessant repetition (by the little darlings) of butt jokes and the "let's play bonk booty" game, and the endless refrain (from me) of "put your shoes on; we're leaving." There are only so many times a mother can ask, insist, demand, shout, and threaten over the lack of coat wearing before she thinks to herself, "Why ON EARTH would I EVER think having another was a good idea?" This excellent form of birth control occurs in our household at least once a day.

I only have one close friend who has three children. She lives in Boston and is a professor like me. It typically takes me at least two months of phone tag to pin her down for a conversation. Sometimes I think about that when I find myself sighing longingly for a third sweet little muffin of a baby. And then I wonder whether the little heartfelt tugs towards a third aren't really more a manifestation of our family's particular brand of insanity; we suffer from a congenital condition called BiteOffMoreThanYouCanChewitis.

By and large, then, I have found myself agreeing with Husband that perhaps we are "done." And yet I cannot bring myself to sell the baby gear. There are covered bins of neatly folded, tiny little infant outfits in one closet, a bouncy seat, a bumbo, infant carseat and strollers, a pack and play, swaddling blankets, all those items that my own two children so recently -- oh! so very recently -- were using every day. Outgrown, patiently waiting, these items remind me of the infanthoods that passed so quickly, and something within me thinks: perhaps we should give these things one more go around the block before our family is really ready to go on a more "grown up" vacation.

And then I realize that right now, we could put life preservers on our children and take them kayaking in a bay (assuming there were a bay anywhere nearby that wasn't frozen over), and I wonder if bringing an infant into this mix doesn't just upset our trajectory more than I am willing to juggle.

But here's the thing: my BODY doesn't care at all what my mind, heart, and husband think. There are some months when I think that my body has actually grown a second mind which lives in my uterus. This mind is very carefully calibrated to sleep 25 days a month, quietly amassing secret reserves of intensity and persuasion, and then when, with an imperceptible ping!, the timer goes off in my ovaries, Uterus Mind wakes up screaming.

The egg! The egg! It's coming soon!! the mind shrieks. It begins to shake me out of my stupor. Time to get busy, woman! You can do it!! Seduce that husband of yours! Don't waste the opportunity!! The egg will be ready any day now!! C'mon, you can do it!! I SAID NOW!! This could be your last chance! You aren't getting any younger you know!!

And then, finally, Uterus Mind runs out of its allotment of exclamation points and tries a different tactic.

Mmmmmm.... it purrs. Just think how nice tonight will be. A little wine, curl up and chat, close the door to the bedroom tightly so the children won't wake up... Just you and the man... Mmmmmm.... it's been a while, hasn't it? Just think how good you look in those pants now that you've been working out. I'm sure he's noticed. Why not make it worth his while to notice even more tomorrow? Here, I'll help get you in the mood...

Uterus Mind is nothing if not a powerhouse combination of intimidation and smooth talking.

For the next few days, Uterus Mind keeps up the endless stream of chatter. Whispered seductions, insistent demands, cajoling, berating, pleading. Requiring, in short, that I satisfy its empty longing with the one little thing it asks from me. Such a small thing. A tiny little favor. Just one more fertilized egg for the future. So small, I'll hardly notice the difference.

It is so persuasive that my real brain actually believes the promises of Uterus Mind. "Oh," I think, "having another baby, another sweet, soft, snuzzly baby, would be so delightful!" Nowhere in the patter from Uterus Mind are the words diapers, teething, college funds or daycare. Uterus Mind doesn't care about the marital discord that would be caused by an unexpected pregnancy. All it cares about is the furthering of the human species through the process of procreating as much as possible before this ain't-getting-any-younger host of a woman dries up inside and becomes incapable of bearing fruit in her womb. Uterus Mind, I am convinced, is an evolutionary innovation that turns otherwise sensible, professional women into something akin to dogs driven nearly wild by the scent of a female in heat hiding somewhere around here. It makes us want to impregnate ourselves. Desperately wish we could impregnate ourselves.

And then, of course, it shuts up again. After three or four days of tyranny, intimidation, and crazy successful efforts to raise the libido almost past the point of human tolerance, Uterus Mind sighs quietly, Well, I tried, and goes back to sleep.

My real mind takes over, usually with a stunned moment of silence to appreciate the full force of what has just happened, and then it sighs too, Well, at least we dodged the bullet this month. Of course, the intensity of Uterus Mind's pleas always leaves room for a little doubt in that regard, and then the next two weeks are alternately laughable (how could I possibly listen to that fool, UM?), panicky (what will Husband say if UM won this round?), and soul searching (how do I really feel about having another child?).

There are no easy answers to any of these questions, but slowly I come to the inevitable conclusion that if we BOTH aren't ready, then our family isn't ready for another. I marvel over how strongly this urge has manifest recently (I never felt this way in my 20s or early 30s), and I chuckle over biology through a few weeks of relative calm and happiness.

And then, ping! Uterus Mind wakes up screaming again.

Today's Post Brought to You by the Letter "L"

yrical language, lissome lily of the valley, love.

It's a fun little exercise: take a letter, then make a list of ten things of which you are particularly fond that start with that letter. It was Calicobebop's idea, and she handed me an "L," so here's my list.

1. Literature. This is hardly a surprise, I know. But I love the pace of a long session of quiet reading, the coziness of looking up through the window and watching snow or rain fall, and then losing myself in a book again, the anticipation of being halfway through a complex novel and wondering about what will happen next, the magic of immersing myself in lyrical poetry.

2. Lace tablecloths. Mine has filaments woven by hand by women who inherited the techniques from their mother's mother's mother's mother. I purchased it on the island of Burano off the coast of Venice when I was just a few months pregnant with Son. The fiber is cotton, and the openwork pattern of flowers is, like a spiderweb, both delicate and incredibly sturdy.

3. Lilacs. I have a lovely bush ridiculously placed in a dappled shady bed. Lilacs need full sun, and yet this bush blooms every year, and makes my whole yard fragrant for several weeks. Someday, I will have a whole hedge of them.

4. London. Perhaps my favorite city (so far) in which I've ever spent time. Theater, parks, museums, pubs, theater, libraries, shopping, theater, history, architecture, and theater. What else could you want in a city?

5. Leather bags. Totes, satchels, purses, hobos. I love the smell of quality leather, the feel of buttery softness, the shapes, the styles, the buckles, the chance to change your look so quickly. I may not love the price, but that doesn't keep me from oogling...

6. Lasagne. The best lasagne I ever had was in a little after-theater restaurant in Bristol, England. It was run by a motherly Italian woman who was chief cook, bartender, and bouncer all rolled into one. The single-serving dishes came out of the kitchen fiercely hot, tangy with a sauce of fresh tomatoes, creamy with a cheesy bechamel I have long tried to replicate and long failed even to emulate. It was a culinary dream the likes of which I could eat every day -- if only I had the recipe.

7. Laughter. The deep belly laughs of my children when they crack each other up; the lilting giggles of my daughter when I tickle her with my eyelashes; the side-splitting laughter that comes with sharing stories and wine with my dearest friends. In all forms, I love to laugh, love to hear others laughing.

8. Light. It's not so much light as opposed to dark, but rather the quality of light that I appreciate. I love the warm glow that the time just before dusk -- what used to be called the gloaming, and what a lovely word -- casts on skin tones. I love the clarity of the light at the beach, the beams of light in which dust motes dance lazily on a summer's day, the pool of lamplight that unites us as we sit together on the couch talking late at night.

9. Lemon. The smell of the zest cheers me up almost instantly. I love the sight of lemons hanging plump and promising on trees; the clean flavor of a lemon sponge cake; the refreshing tang of homemade lemonade on hot summer days; tart lemon bars for a gooey winter pick-me-up; and the brilliant lemon-motif pottery produced in Tuscany.

10. Lithographs. Perhaps it's because I study the nineteenth century for a living, but I am particularly fond of the fine lines, the attention to detail, the delicacy and precision of these impressive black and white creations. If I could collect anything that had real value, it would be these small wonders.


Photo credit: Art tile (image 2) created here.

Trusting Gibralter

So, here's the story I've begun. Is it worth continuing?
* * * * *

East Miami, Florida
1927

On the morning of her fourth birthday, Helen Everett opened her eyes and began whispering to herself in a sing-song voice, "Now I am four. I'm not three any more. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four." She got out of bed and tiptoed out of the room she shared with her older brother Arthur. "Now I am four," she was saying under her breath, as she headed for the kitchen, where the pleasant sound of eggs scrambling told her that her mother was already awake. "I'm not three anymore..."

In fact, Helen spent most of her days whispering to herself. Despite bright eyes that missed nothing, Helen was shy amongst strangers, clinging to her mother's skirts and murmuring quietly as they walked through the grocer's or the dry goods store. When people first met the Everetts, they usually stared a little too hard at Helen, trying to reconcile her pixie prettiness with the oddity of her constantly-moving, yet silent, lips. What they did not know was that Helen was as likely to be repeating whatever words they spoke to her mother as to be murmuring a little refrain of her own. For Helen not only saw everything; she took it all in too.

Eyes bright with anticipation, Helen skipped into the kitchen.

“Happy Birthday, my darling!” her mother sang out, looking up from her bowl and whisk.

Helen climbed up into a green chair that her mother had painted only the week before. Now I add the cinnamon, Helen whispered to herself, narrating the well-known process of preparing French Toast batter, as her mother reached for the shaker. Stir stir stir stir stir. Now the vanilla. No sound escaped Helen’s lips, despite their movement.

Her mother smiled at her just as Doris and Henrietta wandered into the room. Helen loved the soft, pretty Doris like a second mother – which is to say, she did what Doris told her, felt very sorry when she did something Doris found necessary to scold, and liked to curl up on Doris’s lap when she was in a good mood for telling stories. Doris gave her a hug and whispered a birthday wish in Helen’s ear.

There was nothing quiet about Henrietta. “Happy Birthday, Peanut!” she boomed, ruffling Helen’s hair.

“Hen-ryyyy!” squealed Helen with delight, trying to smooth her tousled mess.

“Sorry, Sport,” said Henrietta, grinning. “Couldn’t help myself. Say, listen! I’ve got a birthday surprise for you. After breakfast, just you and me, we’re going outside, and…” she paused.

“And what? And what?!” demanded Helen with excitement. “What is it? What’s my surprise?” She bounced a little in her chair, punctuating her questions. “What is it? What? What? What? What? What?!”

“Oops. Sorry. Can’t tell you that, Sport. Then it wouldn’t be a surprise any more.”

“Hen-rryyyyy!” groaned Helen. Their mother, Viola, pinched her lips together a little too tightly but didn’t say anything. Helen was the only one in the family who called her older sister “Henry.” It had been endearing when she was younger, her lisping out “Do-with” and “Hen-wee” to designate her big sisters. Now, certainly, she could speak well enough to manage the full “Henrietta,” but she seemed to sense the truth—that the laughing, sporty, vivid Henrietta preferred the short version. Helen’s devotion to her Henry was remarkable, particularly given the eleven years’ difference in their ages. And so Viola, while she did not approve of the boyish nickname, had not had the heart to insist that Helen give it up. Next year, she thought to herself, next year will be soon enough for Helen to lose her childish ways.

Viola was proud of Henrietta’s athleticism and grateful, too, for how much of an interest the older girl took in her little sister. Doris was, to be sure, more helpful around the house – pitching in with the endless washing, cooking, and gardening, not to mention the home repairs they had contracted to do in lieu of rent. On the days when Viola’s headaches overwhelmed her, or her spirits were too low to take much of an interest in anything, it was Doris who made sure that the little ones got their lunches and lessons, even though she herself was still a year away from graduating high school. But it was Henrietta who loved Helen as if she was her own.

“Would someone please go wake Arthur?” Viola asked. “Tell him he’s going to miss the birthday breakfast if he doesn’t hurry.”

“I will,” Helen, slipping down off her chair. Birthday breakfast. Breakfast time. Birthday time. Break-faaaast. Birthday birthday breakfast time, she murmured as she went after her brother.

It wasn’t long before six-year-old Arthur had joined his sisters and mother, and everyone was happily eating French toast. They were just finishing the meal when their father walked through the kitchen door, a smile on his face.

“Daddy!” shrieked Helen. He gathered her up in his arms and swung her around. “Happy Birthday, my Blarney,” he said, giving his wife a significant look above his daughter’s head. Viola closed her mouth and didn’t ask what he was doing home from the store just two hours after opening it.

“Who would like to spend a birthday at the beach?” he asked gaily. As the little ones started clamoring, “me me me me me!” his wife shook her head slightly, trying to indicate to him that they didn’t have food in the house suitable for a picnic. Lloyd ignored her warning. “I’ve got a bag sitting in the car right now, full of the most wonderful birthday picnic you ever tasted,” he said to Helen. “We’ll be off just as soon as you all can gather your things.”

Helen dashed towards her bedroom, and then stopped suddenly. “Oh, Henry,” she wailed, her eyes tearing up. “Does this mean I’ll miss your birthday surprise?” A sensitive child, Helen was almost as worried about hurting Henry’s feelings by forgetting about the surprise she’d planned as she was about missing it herself. Almost.

“Don’t worry,” Henry laughed. “The beach is an even better place for me to give you your surprise. I’ll just bring it with us.”

In the midst of her children’s happy commotion of getting ready for their impromptu holiday, Viola puzzled over her husband’s presence at home in the middle of the day. Surely he hadn’t given up another job? They could ill afford to be without an income again after so few paychecks. She was good at stretching their pennies, but she could not stretch what did not exist. And it would be several more months of steady practice on the church’s organ before she was really proficient enough to supplement their income.

A picnic! Such an extravagance. Not to mention the day’s wages lost, the cost of the gas to get them all out to the beach and back for the day. She totted up the figures in her head—mental arithmetic was her strong suit—as she packed swimming suits and towels, smiling a little in spite of herself when she thought how happy the children and she would all be for a change of scene. Leave it to Lloyd to plan something special for his Blarney’s birthday. He always had doted on that child.

If only she could understand the cryptic look Lloyd had given her as he walked out to load up their things in the car. Don’t worry, the look seemed to say, everything will be just fine.

She hoped, this time, that she could believe him.

Fun with Fiction: Setting the Scene

It's week three of our little fiction experiment, and I have nothing quite yet to show you. I'm working on my scene, though, and I hope to put it up tomorrow. But I do have a new prompt here for anyone who's interested. (If you haven't been playing along, past posts have explored creating memorable characters and writing scenes with conflict. If you have written a scene around one of your characters in the past week, leave a link in the comments.)

As with characters, setting descriptions can be blah or pow! The key thing to keep in mind is that places -- just like people -- are not understood simply by how they look. It's easy to understand that a person has a complex interior, and that a good character description will capture not just appearances but also personality and traits that make an individual. Places, though this may seem less obvious, are the same way. Sure, a postcard photo captures what a place looks like, and may even make you want to go there -- but it rarely can capture the essence of a place.

What makes a particular place special? In part, it has to do with details about the place, but largely, it has to do with how people perceive it. Is it a place people eagerly come to, or one they dread? Is it a place that is uplifting, oppressive, inspiring, intimidating, mundane? Why? Some of that may be inherent, but some also has to do with perspective: one person's exhilarating may be another's intimidating.

Here is the famous opening to Charles Dickens's Bleak House, with its fabulous description of London at street level in the 1850s.

Chapter 1 — In Chancery
LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.

I like this description so much in part because the tortured sentences of the first paragraph read at the same slow agonizing pace as one would have trudging through the mud of these streets. I also love that he uses sentence fragments so effectively. There is not a single complete sentence in these two paragraphs; instead, each fragment captures one blip of an image, a glimpse one might catch of a person or a thing before the fog shuts it out from view again. There is a sense here that one is traveling around the murky city, isolated from the rest of humanity by the difficulty of interminable mud and the sight-dimming fog. And the repetition of the word "fog" brilliantly amplifies that by punctuating every image and reminding us of its constant presence in the city.

Ultimately in the novel, this description becomes a metaphor for Dickens's discussion of the British court system, which is also mired in mud and clouded with fog. But for now, we get a vivid description of the physically depressing state of London and the sense of trudging through mire that sets the tone for the entire novel. (No, the book doesn't get much more cheerful. It is, after all, called Bleak House.)

So, how does a writer create a great scene description like this? First by picking a spot and then by doing some hard thinking about what the most salient characteristics of the spot are. You'll notice, for example, that Dickens has left architectural detail completely out of his description, in favor of focusing on how people move through the streets.

So here's the next writing prompt, if you're interested:

Where is your story happening? Choose at least one location (could be a city, a building, a public place, a house, you name it) that will be integral to your story. Make a list of ten things that are central to understanding that place. Some ideas:

weather, plants, topography
smells
things hanging on the walls
architecture
colors
textures
who else is there?
why are those other people there?
mood
patterns of speech
food
what's missing from the scene, causing a gap?
history
hopes for the future

Now, write a paragraph or two describing the place, working in at least two or three of these details, and perhaps elaborating on them. You don't have to share the whole list along with your place description (you might want to preserve some of your details to add richness throughout the story).

Also keep in mind that if you are setting your story in a foreign place (whether it's a spot you've never been or a time before you are born), a little research goes a long way towards providing authenticity. Use Google images to look for photos of the place. Use newspaper archives to find out what was in the news there/then. And so on.

Come back next Monday, and leave a link to your post, so we can all travel around with you.

Happy Writing!

P.S. Today is the last day to enter to win a month subscription to a great online math program for your kids. All you have to do is click over and leave a comment on this post to enter.

Small Good Things for Rainy Saturday

Something for others: Pampers has teamed up with UNICEF to sponsor a great vaccine program. For every specially-marked package of Pampers diapers or wipes that you buy between now and May 1, Pampers will buy a tetanus vaccine to be distributed through UNICEF. To help support this program, you don't have to do anything you wouldn't normally do -- except be sure that if you are purchasing these products anyway, you buy the specially marked packages. How easy is that? If you want to download the widget for your site, to show you support these efforts, and to help spread the word, you can find it here.

Something for you: Don't miss the chance to win a free month of what might be the greatest online math help your K-3rd grader could ever receive. The fun, educational system adapts to your child's abilities in a variety of math-based skills, making it perfect for every child--from those who need a little extra tutoring to those who are ahead of the curve in their grade. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post to be entered to win.

Something for me: I just got word yesterday that the book I've been working on for years (revision of my dissertation, academic stuff) has been accepted by a great university press! The contract is in the mail. It's not be a book that will be of huge popular interest, but it is a pretty big deal for my career, and I'm thrilled. So, whee! And martinis all around.

Hope your Saturday is as happy as mine...

House-Hunting Treasures

Calicobebop has a post up right now about the process of trying to get her house ready for selling -- a post that made me think about the hilarity (and pain) that can be trying to buy a house. And given the current crises in the mortgage markets, I thought perhaps a little levity around the subject might not be unwarranted. So without further ado, here are the best (and by best, I clearly mean worst) houses I ever looked at while house hunting.

Looking to buy our very first house after years of apartment living, we told our realtor that we didn't want to look at any ranch houses. We wanted a house with a staircase. That's the difference between an apartment and a house, I felt intuitively: houses have an upstairs.

The first place she took us? An "adorable" little ranch house. It only had one bedroom (we'd said a minimum of two). It was in a terrible school district (we'd been particular about what we were hoping for). She thought the house was "just so cute" that we would "fall in love with it." We thought she was absurd and a bad listener. And yet, we let her continue to drive us around that day. Our bad.

The second place she took us? A ranch house that really had to be seen to be believed. It had "four" bedrooms. Two were normal. Then there was the side porch that ran the length of the house. It had been enclosed, but it still had a sloping, lumpy brick floor, poorly concealed with carpet remnants. Some pieces of 1970s paneling had been nailed together to form a partition to divide the porch in half. It had no heat (this is Michigan, you recall, and we were looking at houses in Feburary, so the lack of heat was somewhat noticable). This fine space constituted the additional two bedrooms.

And then, as we were looking at the rest of the house, we were stunned to find the tiniest kitchen imaginable (really, nearly unworkable) that opened into a postage stamp of a hallway, off which was another door into a very large room that was combination laundry room, furnace room, and ... wait for it ... BATHROOM. That's right. A free-standing, antique clawfoot tub stood nearly in the middle of a room that also housed a pedastal sink (not placed up against a wall), a toilet (ditto), a behemoth of a furnace (?!?!), and a washer/dryer (occupying some wall space). The room was spacious but shaped like a random polygon. Not only did I have a hard time getting my head around the vision of a furnace in the bathroom (a bathtub in the furnace room?), but I couldn't figure out why anyone in her right mind wouldn't have knocked down the existing walls, rerrranged a little plumbing, and made a giant kitchen with a closet at one end to hold the washer/dryer, and a small bathroom, with a separate furnace closet.

Unless of course furnces need a large space in which to breath or something. In which case... WTF? WHO would buy that house? Seriously.

We saw houses that had been subdivided into rabbit warrens of impossiblity, once used as rentals for college students, whose needs apparently did not extend to luxurious extravagences such as counters in the kitchen or a space of some kind to put a table on which to eat.

We saw "fixer-uppers" that most people would have labeled "tearer-downers."

But nothing we saw could top the house I remember looking at with my dad and step-mother in about 1979. My sisters and I were sure that this was the house for us as we drove down the driveway. It was a long, steep, curving drive that ran past a very large swimming pool on the way to the house. The house was set far below the level of the street, on a wooded and beautiful lot. We were sold immediately.

Then we walked indoors.

The main living room was gigantic. It was mostly devoid of furniture, since the current owers had already moved out. But it still had a very large collection of dolls arrayed on the built-in glass shelving units that lined one wall. Their dusy magnificence fascinated me, and I secretly hoped that since they'd been left behind when the owners moved, perhaps they came with the house. The carpet in that room reeked, reeked, I tell you, of dogs who were not house-trained. And there was a gorgeous, huge, heavily carved, gilt harp in one corner of the room.

I was smitten.

I desperately wanted to touch the surprisingly thick metal strings of the harp.

My parents, ever polite, toured the rest of the house while I stood shyly by the harp, imagining myself playing it, and then took another gander at the doll collection, hoping some of them were real antiques. I tried not to notice that my eyes were getting itchy and red, and I pretended that my sneezes were nothing. My nine-year-old self could tell that, even covered in a thick layer of dust, some of these dolls were magnificent. I wondered if anyone would notice if I took one down to hold it and look at it more closely.

Just as I was reaching out my hand to touch one, gingerly, my parents motioned that we were going to check out the basement, so my sisters and I trooped downstairs. AGAIN, a treasure! This time, a treadmill. I stood on it, imagined myself running on, was fascinated and mystified. (Remember, this was 1979, and home-exercise equipment was hardly de riguer.)

Emerging quickly from the basement's back room, my parents politely thanked the realtor, told me in no uncertain terms that we were leaving, and we all got out of there fast.

They looked stunned.

"Oh, you should have seen it!" breathed my sister.

"Seen what?" I replied a little scornfully, not wanting to reveal that I felt a pang that I'd missed something else wonderful in that perfect perfect house.

"It was...it was...what was it again, Daddy?" my other sister asked.

"A buzzard," my father replied grimly.

"A stuffed buzzard?!" I was so disappointed. HERE was something you didn't see every day.

"No," my step-mother clarified, "not a stuffed buzzard."

My father chimed in, stone-faced. "It was a real buzzard. In a cage."

A real live buzzard! And I'd missed it!! I was nearly crushed with disappointment.

My parents? Did not buy that house.

The Post in which Half the Content is Parenthetical (For Reasons I Can't Explain)

Back when I first started this little adventure, I did a lot of reading about blogging. Well, that's not strictly true. I started it without any clue whatsoever, and then about four months in, I did a whole bunch of reading -- seeking blogging tips, advice from those more experienced, trying to learn as much as I could. (Whatever. I'm a dork. I like to do research. I embrace that side of myself.)

One of the things I remember reading -- in the context of the Great Warning (what is the Great Warning? Oh, you know, that Blogging Can Be Addictive) -- is that one should never blog first thing in the morning. The logic was that it's too easy to turn on the computer, start reading other people's posts, replying to your own comments, and generally frittering time away, and then, suddenly *poof!* it's lunchtime, and you've done nothing productive.

Of course, I, on reading this advice, was all la la la la la la la la, I can't heeeeaaaar you (with fingers in ears, obviously). I prefer to check my blog in the morning, read a few posts while the children are taking 8 frazillion hours to eat their bowls of cereal, leave a comment here or there.

I could say that this has never become addictive for me, and that I have never frittered away a day until suddenly *poof!* it was lunchtime. But since I have no desire to change my name legally to Little Lying Lucy McLiarson, I won't say that. I'll even cop to burning the heck out of the butter in a pan just now, since I got so distracted writing this post that I forgot to add the eggs to the pan. (I know. I'm just feeling confessional for some reason today.)

I know some people do the blogging-in-snatches-of-time thing -- where they check in over lunch at their desks, or while the children are napping, or during commercials of their favorite show. Other people do the super-organized schedule thing, where they write posts in batches on one or two set days (or nights) of the week, have allotted times for perusing their feed readers (and actually close the window when the timer dings), and so on. Other people seem to have mastered Zen and the art of blog maintenance, and they write (beautifully) when they are inspired.

Here's me: I can't do the "snatches of time" model because I will "snatch" two hours as soon as you give me ten minutes. I can't do the super-organized thing because I like to write when the mood strikes. (Also, I will not close the window of my reader when the timer dings.) And I am not Zen.

Also and, I can't emulate the schedules of people for whom blogging is a full-time job, since eight hours a day is nowhere near the amount of time I can spend blogging. In fact, some days, it's about ten hours more than I have to spend blogging. (If you don't have days where you have at least two more hours of work to get done than there are hours in the day, I don't think I know you.)

And yet, in a world where time was of no consequence, I could easily spend eight hours a day blogging, given the number of writers that I love to read, plus the number of people who leave comments that make me want to visit them back, plus the amount of time it takes to write my own drivel. (This post has taken a nice quiet breakfast time to compose, since the kids are already at daycare -- which of course means that I am Seriously Wasting Daycare Dollars by writing a blog post instead of grading papers right now. And yes, the fried eggs on toast were quite tasty. Thanks.)

So I'm curious: what do you do? What are your strategies for keeping up (enough) with the blogs you like to read, replying (enough) to the comments you get, writing what and when you want, while yet keeping blogging in its proper place? (Which is to say, not ahead of your children, the job you do that earns money, the housework, paying attention to your spouse, or whatever else in your real life is vital.) How do you find your balance?

Because while I am pretty good about staying focused on Son and Daughter while I am home with them, I fritter away inordinate amounts of time at night online after they go to bed, when I could (and should) be working on other writing/grading/reading projects. And I'm pretty sure that keeping a second window open on my computer, so that I can see when I get a new comment or a new post pops into my reader, is not making me the most productive person I can be while I'm at my day job. So I clearly need some help.

Got suggestions?

My Darling Girl,

As I was zipping up your favorite warm pants (cherry colored corduroy) a few days ago, I realized with a start that they are now a bit loose around the waist. When we bought them back in October, they were on the long side, and snug snug snug. Now, they are b-a-r-e-l-y long enough, but miraculously can accommodate your belly just fine. Your babyish body, my darling, is disappearing. Last fall, when you walked, it was still with that endearing toddler posture of leading with your belly. Round in the cheeks, with the chubs of a year of greedy nursing still lingering in your legs, you sallied forth, more belly than anything else, laughing your way through your days.

Now, the giggle remains, but I can see in your face the little girl you are becoming, rather than the baby you so recently were. With braids in your hair (yes! you will sit still now for me to braid it! and there is enough to braid!) and a sparkle in your eyes, you tell me complex stories of your days.

Your pronunciations are still charming: your favorite treat is "smarshmallows," and you always ask for "lotsn lotsn smarshmallows," though you know I'll only give you two.

Recently, you have taken to using the word "soakin" as a magnifier for concepts. "I can't use this s'arp knife," you told me, "it's soakin soakin dang'rous." It took me a while to figure that one out, but here, I think, is the logic: most of the time, we use "so" to emphasize things: "I love you so much," or "that is so dangerous." But then, a few weeks ago, you stood in the dog's water dish in your socks just to see what would happen, and I complained that now you were "soaking wet" and would have to change just as we were supposed to be leaving the house. The tone of my voice clearly conveyed that "soaking wet" was even more problematic than "so wet," and hence a new superlative was born. "Good, better, best." "More, most" "So, soakin." Makes perfect sense. If something is REALLY bad, it's not "so bad"; it's "soakin bad."

Personally, I find this soakin hilarious that it's hard not to laugh out loud when you announce these things in a very serious voice. "Mama, the fish are soakin hungwee. Let's feed dem!"

When I came home late from work, as I always do on a Monday, I peeked in on you to tuck you in. Breathing softly under your "princess tent" (a confection of soft mosquito netting), you looked so peaceful. As soon as I leaned in, though, to pull the covers up to your chin, your small arm shot straight up out of the bed, and you hooked my neck in the vise-grip of your tiny hand. You pulled me down towards your pillow, opened your eyes halfway at most, and murmured, "I love you, Mama." You would not let my neck go, and so I stayed. As you settled down, you patted the back of my neck, even while you looked already asleep. Your mouth was opened just a bit, lips full and sweet around the tiny O of your breath. Your whisps of hair tickled my nose. Your face grew calm. It was only when you were breathing deeply again that I could raise myself, untangle your hand from my hair, and seek out my own bed.

You have had your first visit to the dentist (just yesterday), and you are learning to swim with a lifevest on. You drop whatever you are doing to run to the door when either your Daddy or I come home, and the deep, husky belly laugh you emit when your brother makes butt jokes is almost impossible to resist. You are marvelous at sharing, insisting that I dole out treats for your brother if you are getting some, but you will not put up with being taken advantage of. Good for you, for not letting him snatch whatever he wants, just because you are smaller. You don't always have to have the smaller portion in life, my daughter. Always remember that.

There is no occasion to mark with this letter. It's just a Tuesday. But there are so many tiny details of what you are like on a daily basis that I am afraid I will forget, as the older you replaces the younger you, and so I am writing them down here, so that we will have a record to chuckle over together when you are older.

This afternoon, when I sang out, "who wants to tuck me in and read me stories?!" you were the first one up the stairs, and you grabbed such an armload of books that you had to ask for help carrying them. Of course, you cannot really read, but you have memorized quantities of stories and love to recite them and turn the pages for a captive audience. Unlike your brother (who knows the same trick), you will keep the book all to yourself as you "read" and then hold up the pictures to show us both, as if you are your own preschool teacher.

The combination of utter silliness and intense seriousness in you is remarkable -- and something I hope you never lose.

For so many reasons, my little Birdie, I am proud of the little girl you are becoming, even as I feel a pang at the babyhood you are leaving behind. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Your loving,

Mama


(If you have children in early elementary school, you might want to learn more about a truly fantastic online supplemental math system that Son adored -- including a giveaway, because I adored it too!)

The Great Babysitter Dilemma

Back in the Stone Ages, when I was a babysitter, the going rate was $1 an hour. I took the liberty of upping it to $1.50 when I was about 15. In retrospect, given that the minimum wage was just over $4 an hour at that time, I probably could have gone nuts and asked for $2 or even $3. But I felt like I was almost being greedy at $1.50.

Even at those exploitative rates, I brought home $150-$200 a month in the summers. That is a lot of babysitting.

I assumed at the time that part of the gig was tidying up messes. It's not like I broke out the vacuum or anything. But if I were sitting for a family whose kids were asleep by 8:00, and they were going to pay me to be there till they got home at midnight, I always felt a wee bit guilty taking their money for four hours of reading my latest favorite novel. So, I'd do a quick sweep through the house and pick up all the toys we'd played with before the kids went to bed, and I'd do the dishes. Basically, when they came home, the house was tidy.

Fast forward to today. The only paid babysitters we've ever used have been women who work at the kids' daycare. One or two, early on, decided they were too busy with school in the evenings, or whatever, to babysit on top of their full-time jobs. One we never had back because despite my careful directions about bedtime and routines, she let our 18 month old stay up and watch tv until 10pm because, in her words, "I kept asking him if he wanted to go to bed, and he kept saying no."

So now we're down to one sitter. She is lovely, nearly old enough to be my mother, wonderful with the kids. She can distract and soothe, drive them to the hospital if there's an emergency, and will read them each five books before bed if they want. She's been a daycare professional for over a decade. She charges $10 an hour, which seems fair given that this is her profession. (Honestly, the first time she sat for us, she just said she charged "Whatever," and I paid her closer to $12 an hour because I rounded up to the nearest bill I had in my wallet, and she got in my face the next time she came and told me point-blank that I "paid way too much last time." So I settled on $10 an hour.)

Here's the thing, though: when we come home at night, the dirty dishes from which she fed the kids dinner are still on the table. The toys are all over the floor. She has done a wonderful job with the kids themselves, but once they are asleep, she is all about HGTV. I find it mildly irksome, given that (for example) this past Saturday, my children were only awake for 45 minutes of the 4 hours of sitting for which we paid her. But I do realize that we are paying her for her time, that I have never explicitly said that I expect her to tidy up after the kids, and that at this point, it's probably impossible to say anything, given that she's been taking care of my children for five years now.

But I have a question to piggy-back on this dilemma.

We have a neighbor girl who is a young teenager. I have been thinking for a while now that I would like to hire her occasionally to play with the kids while I do yard work or chores, or lock myself in my office to grade some papers. Her mother has told me in no uncertain terms that the girl should be paid $5 an hour, as she's very young. My hope is that if she does a bit of playing with the kids, so that they get comfortable with her, we can move on to hiring her for short evenings so that Husband and I can go out for dinner in our town. With her mother literally across the street, I'd be perfectly comfortable hiring the girl to put the kids down to bed and stay with them while we are sipping a glass of wine and enjoying a bite of pasta a mile away.

But I think that I need to be very clear with her about my expectations with her. I don't expect her to clean or be a housekeeper. I don't assume she will multi-task while amusing the children and fold the laundry. BUT, I think that if she comes over for a few hours in the evenings, it's not unreasonable to ask her to do a quick tidy of the things she and the kids actively used while she was here. NOT the whole house. But put the costumes back in the costume box if they spread them all around. That sort of thing.

The question: is this a reasonable expectation? What do you expect from your sitters? Do you expect different things if they are going to be there for hours at night while the children are asleep, as opposed to only while they are awake? Did you tell them this up front? Do you have any other advice for me? (Or do you need to tell me to stop living in the Stone Ages, already? If so, go ahead. I can take it.)

Fun with Fiction: Characters and Conflict

Did you miss the first Fun with Fiction post? If so, the short version is that we're trying a sort of fiction support group here at Chez Martini. We're going to do small bits of writing each week, and link them up here, and give each other moral support, helpful critiques, and motivation to keep working on some new piece of fiction. The first task is to create a few characters. (If you want to join us, please do! You'll find more details on the previous post.) Here are my best efforts to create some interesting characters.

I was interested to find that my efforts to describe them lent themselves to a story. That is, because I was trying to avoid simply giving a physical description of each one, I found myself inadvertently starting a narrative instead. The effort to SHOW rather than TELL seemed impossible for me without beginning to imagine a story line. Although the three descriptions aren't woven together into a set of plotted events, I can already see that they are headed that way. I was surprised by this because two of the three examples I gave last week really were pretty pure descriptions. Yet I couldn't manage that. How many of you who tried this found the same thing -- that creating characters completely devoid of a story was really almost impossible?

* * * * * Miami, 1927 * * * * *

On the morning of her fourth birthday, Helen Everett opened her eyes and began whispering to herself in a sing-song voice, "Now I am four. I'm not three any more. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four." She got out of bed and tiptoed out of the room she shared with her older brother Arthur. "Now I am four," she was saying under her breath, as she headed for the kitchen, where the pleasant sound of eggs scrambling told her that her mother was already awake. "I'm not three anymore..."

In fact, Helen spent most of her days whispering to herself. Despite bright eyes that missed nothing, Helen was shy amongst strangers, clinging to her mother's skirts and murmuring quietly as they walked through the grocer's or the dry goods store. When people first met the Everetts, they usually stared a little too hard at Helen, trying to reconcile her pixie prettiness with the oddity of her constantly-moving, yet silent, lips. What they did not know was that Helen was as likely to be repeating whatever words they spoke to her mother as to be murmuring a little refrain of her own. For Helen not only saw everything; she took it all in too.

* * * * *

Viola Everett had been a high school math teacher, and a good one too, before Floyd had moved her and the children down to Florida. So far she was managing just fine for the six of them on his uncertain income, no small thanks to her meticulous recording of their every expenditure. Frugal with her pennies, and generous with her laughter, Viola knew how to make the latter suffice when money was short. Their tiny apartment was spotless, despite the fact that "the big girls," as Helen called them, turned the one common living area into a bedroom come nightfall. As she scrambled eggs for Helen's favorite French toast, Viola breathed a sign of contentment. It was impossible to be unhappy in such a glorious place, she thought, smiling at the scarlet masses of bougainvillea which framed the view out her kitchen window.

* * * * *

Floyd was not a man given to brooding, despite what people said about him. He was a quiet, steady worker, dependable, and always willing to take on a new project. Although he had been a high school principal back in Michigan, he enjoyed working with his hands because it freed up time for his mind to wander elsewhere. When he was concentrating, he pursed his thin lips so tightly together that they all but disappeared under the brushy thickness of his mustache, and little furrows appeared in his forehead. Had anyone offered him a penny for his thoughts, he would gladly have hummed a few bars -- for he was nearly always concentrating on music. But because no one offered, Floyd never hummed, and so everyone else on the job pegged him as the competent but taciturn type, and respectfully left him alone.

* * * * *
For each character, I tried to capture some personality trait or quirk or quality that would reveal something about who they are. I would love feedback in the comments. And I can't wait to read the characters you've created!

Now, for next week:

At the heart of every great story is a conflict. It may be an external conflict (she wants to get a dog, he doesn't, they fight) or an internal one (he can't bring himself to tell his boss why the client really dropped the account). The most interesting stories often have unexpected conflicts, in which we didn't see THAT problem coming up, or unexpected solutions, in which who could have guessed there was a way out through that door? The trick, of course, is walking the fine line between unexpected and unrealistic (assuming you are striving for a realistic story). So, getting an apparently passive young man out of the fist fight in which he's suddenly found himself by giving him the hitherto-unknown-even-by-him ability to fly may not work. By the same token, bullies having a sudden change of heart and stopping before drawing blood also can seem pretty lame.

Below are a whole bunch of prompts to get you thinking about conflict. Choose one of the characters you created, and put him or her into a predicament. You don't necessarily have to use any of the problems I've suggested below. Just think of them as fodder to get your creative juices flowing.

Keep in mind that by jumping right into the conflict part of the story, you may be skipping over the "we didn't see THAT coming!" part. That's fine. Start here, and we'll work on plotting the whole arc of the tale later.

In the next week, choose a block of time when you have at least 30 minutes uninterrupted. Make yourself something nice to drink. Do not answer the phone. Write for the whole time, and see what happens. Then come back next Monday, and link up with what you've written.

Also, don't forget to share the character descriptions you've already written! Either paste them into the comments or sign the your post url on the Mr. Linky, so that we can all read about the people you're inventing.

put your character someplace unlikely
how did she get there? how will she get out?

your character has been betrayed.
by whom? why? how? what is his reaction?

your character just rediscovered her long-lost ____
(could be a person or a thing) where/how did she find it? what will she do with it?

your character is laughing so hard he can barely breathe
what's so funny? why?

your character needs a ______
why? does she get it? how?

your character is an outsider
what is he looking in on? what does he think about it?

your character can't eat _______
why?

your character has a nervous tick. on this morning, she is having a hard time controlling it.
what is the tick? what's got it ticking?

your character is supposed to leave on a big trip tomorrow. suddenly, the trip is off.
where was he going to go? why can't he now? what will he do instead?

your character has always loved ______. After today, she won't be able to stand it.
why?

your character tends to overreact. not surprisingly, it happened again this morning.
what was the cause this time?

your character tends to overreact. much to everyone's surprise, it did NOT happen this morning, just when conditions were ripe for that.
why not?

Happy writing!