Day: April 8, 2007

The Strohl’s house has a craft room. In that craft room there were a pair of clothing racks. These racks were filled with costumes. Most of the costumes were sized perfectly for Gleek. Over the course of our stay, Gleek tried on at least 20 different outfits. Most of them were various forms of princess. But once she discovered a set of huge feathered wings, all the costumes were winged. These costumes were impressive and beautiful. Several times I found myself wishing they were in my size so I could try them on.

The costumes were particularly in evidence on the night of the Schlockfest party. Gleek, Kiki, and the Strohl girl all wandered past to get food. Each time they did, they were wearing something different. They were not just wearing different clothes, they were being something different. The next day I got to sort out the resulting costume mess. None of them put a single costume back and so there was much sorting and re-hanging to do.

We have dress-up clothes here for the kids, but none of our costumes are as wonderfully lavish as at the Strohls. Mostly ours are left over homemade halloween costumes. They’re all a bit ratty from being worn and left on the floor and shoved into a great big tub for storage. I would love to be able to create a costume space to hang them all, but I just don’t have a place in our house to devote to that.

One of our first Seattle events was a tour of Wizards of the Coast. This was arranged by the wonderful Stacy Whitman who is an editor there. We knew we were in the right place as soon as we walked into the lobby. The giant dragon sculpture was a big hint. The kids were very impressed with this dragon and with the larger-than-life knight who contemplated the dragon from the other end of the lobby. We took some pictures and looked over the display shelves while we waited for Stacy.

Wizards of the Coast is now owned by Hasbro, so there were some little kid toys out on the lobby table. Patches happily occupied himself playing with Mr. Potato Head. Gleek, rather appropriately, played with a barrel of monkeys. Stacy then arrived and took us on a tour of the facility. At first I felt just like I was walking back into a Novell office building where Howard used to work. Gray carpet and gray cubicles were everywhere. But then I realized that instead of the normal boring landscape art, the walls were covered in fantasy and science fiction art. Wizards was displaying concept art for their various games and books. Also Novell never had a life size model of R2D2. That was cool. The kids all greeted him like a long lost friend. But only Kiki and Gleek consented to be photographed with him.

The tour was somewhat abbreviated to match the attention spans of the kids. Patches was carried for the whole tour by Howard because it was hard for him to keep up. As we passed cubicles I noticed that many of them were very decorated, a practice Novell certainly never encouraged. I could tell that these were creative people and there was a sense that everyone was happy to be there. These were people working at their dream jobs and I could tell. They had everything from a little kitchen to a break area with two jigsaw puzzles in progress. I could tell that it was a good place to be.

The tour ended at Stacy’s cubicle where she had stashed free stuff to give to us. The kids were delighted with all the collectible cards, particularly with the neopets cards. They continue to play with them and Kiki has even ventured out to Neopets.com to create her own virtual neopet. It was a good tour and a good visit.

During the month of March I was very focused on writing and other projects. I felt compelled to bring some things, like the website and business cards, to completion. Now it is April and I’m feeling a little out of balance. I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days about the kids and my role as their mother. The oft quoted phrase from a leader of my church floats through my minds “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” I feel like I’ve been failing my kids. Their wants and needs have been pushed aside a lot lately as I try to make them all conform to my plans for the hour, or day, or week. I’ve also been thinking of my sister Nancy. When she was visiting here I watched her drop her things to respond to her kids. I don’t think I was ever as attentive to my kids as she is to hers. I certainly have not been lately. I’ve been thinking about the trip to Seattle. During the trip my whole focus was to keep the kids safe and to make sure they enjoyed themselves. This meant that I did not get to do some of the things I would have liked to do, but it was alright because I was really focused on the welfare of the kids.

I am a planner. I always have a plan. I invariably get grumpy when my plan gets rearranged. I need to build more of my plans around the things that my kids want me to do. I am always doing things for my kids. Many of them are things that the kids don’t feel need to be done or would rather I didn’t do. I need to make space to do some of the things that they keep asking me to do, but I fail to find the time for. Today I sat down and listed all the things that my kids have been asking me to do, but which I haven’t gotten done.

Kiki has been wanting to try putting egg into her hair to make it shiny. She also wants me to fix two pairs of pajamas. Kiki’s birthday is coming up and we need to plan that. Kiki also has big plans for an embroidery project that she needs my help to accomplish. Link has been asking me to fix his blankets for months. He is also wanting to find ways to earn money so he can buy a video game. He needs me to help him sort through his belongings and decide which ones to sell in a store that he sets up for neighbors and siblings. Gleek wants to have a manicure time. She also wants me to do craft projects with her. She wants to have time to talk at bedtime and her blankets have needed fixing forever. Patches is constantly asking me to sit down and play games with him, I almost never do. He really wants to know how to read and write, I haven’t been teaching him. He would also enjoy going to the library story time and sitting in my lap to listen to the stories.

Over the next few weeks I want to get every one of these things done. There will probably be other things which the kids will want me to do as well. I can’t plan all of every day to be at the whims of my children, but I can make sure that there is time for the really important things. I will also be paying more attention to making sure that there are regular meal times and bedtimes. There have been many tantrums and upsets which could have been avoided if only I’d been ahead of the curve instead of behind it. Being a mother is my primary job and I need to go back to putting it first.