Monday, November 16, 2015

A Monday Hodge-Podge

I spent pretty much all day Sunday painting the Ikea shelves that will eventually grace our new office, so I didn't have time to write a post.

I wanted to write a post, because I wanted to share my latest Tungsten Hippo post- a taster flight of stories about people in search of animals. I really like this flight, because I think that maybe this is in fact a sub-genre that flourishes in short ebooks. I am in the middle of another short ebook that would fit the flight, too. (Also, the flight includes Unspotted....)

Speaking of taster flights, Missed Chances, the "one that got away" taster flight that I published, is in the middle of a GoodReads giveaway promo right now. Go enter if you are so inclined. It also got its first review.

I am hitting burn out stage on the remodeling work. It is eating up all of our weekend time. We have a week long school break for Thanksgiving coming up and we'll be taking some proper time off. It is much needed.

But- we have the final walk through with the architect and the interior decorator on Wednesday, and we want the place to look nice for them, so we're making a bit of a push. Also, we want the decorator's opinion on what sort of blinds to put in the new office, and last time we talked she said that she'd have a better sense once she saw the final furniture in the room. Something about balancing the elements or something like that. She's given us really good advice so far, so we're fairly motivated to get this last little bit of help. This means that we'll be building the shelves tomorrow night.

Or maybe we'll get to build the shelves tomorrow afternoon, because we have the kids' parent-teacher conferences tomorrow and we'll be home early. I'm interested to hear how Petunia is doing. She seems happy with school, and the work that comes home all has smiley faces on it. Her handwriting is much sloppier than Pumpkin's was at this age, but Pumpkin's handwriting now is better than mine, so that is probably not a useful comparison. She's getting 5/5 on her sight word quizzes and seems to "get" everything that is being asked of her, but we're eager to hear how the teacher thinks she's adjusting.

She's been full of interesting ideas and stories lately. Yesterday, she figured out that the tooth fairy is "your grown ups." Here is how the conversation went:

Petunia: Mommy, is the tooth fairy real or is she just your grown ups?

Me: What do you think?

Petunia: I think she's just your grown ups.

Me. Why do you think that?

Petunia: Because I've never seen the tooth fairy at school spying on the kids to see who has loose teeth.

I decided not to argue with this solid piece of logic and confirmed that her grown ups were her tooth fairy. She took it well. She had a very wiggly tooth, and it fell out today at school. She was very excited about it and put it in her little tooth container for her grown ups to sneak into her room and replace with a dollar bill.

She got some money for her birthday last month, and used it to buy some pretend tools. She went around the house "fixing" things for awhile after that. My favorite was when I heard a beeping noise and looked over to see that she had repurposed one of her toy thermometers to be a stud finder.

Last weekend, she and I had an evening to ourselves when Mr. Snarky took Pumpkin to a birthday party. We went and played at her favorite park. She mostly wanted to swing and pretend to be a pirate. Then we went to IHOP, which she pronounces as "ihoc," for dinner. She was very happy, and so was I, except about the rather loud Trump supporter at a table near ours. On the bright side, that led me to interrupt Petunia's coloring and teach her how to play the "connect the dots to make boxes" game on the menu, and that was hilarious. Strategy is not yet her strong suite, but it was a fun game.

I also got some 1:1 time with Pumpkin recently. The kids were off school on Veteran's Day. Petunia went to "visit" at her old day care (she had a blast), while Pumpkin and I had a special day. We played Uno (she's vicious), then went to the mall for pretzels. While we were there, we did a little clothes shopping. It has finally gotten a bit chilly here, and she needed some warm pants and a long sleeved shirts. Then we went to one of her favorite parks to play and have a picnic (we'd picked up Subway). Then she said she wanted to read in the sun. Since I didn't have a book for her with me, we came home and spread a blanket out in our backyard and read for an hour or so. It was glorious.

Then we went and got frozen yogurt and played some more at another park. It was a very good day.

Pumpkin is still an anxious kid, but she's also a fun kid. I am trying to figure out how to teach her that the only protection against the bad things that happen is to really embrace the good things in life and to hope that you'll build up enough... good memories? happiness? I don't know what to call it.... to carry you through the harder times. It might help if I really learned that myself, first. I'm working on that.

But for now, it is late. I want to go read my book and then go to sleep. I'm a bit behind on my to do list, but there's always tomorrow. All of the things on the list can wait.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9:40 AM

    This is such an incredibly lovely post. In my opinion, leaps and bounds ahead of some more premeditated post, because it shows you living your life as a busy working mother who is creatively engaged in the process of making your home happy and productive amidst all of life's hassles. Thank you for writing on this day when you were tired and your book was calling. Your words are a gift to us all!

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