Month: May 2008

Slumber parties are invariably chaotic. It is very exciting to have extra people in the house. It is even more exciting when they bring piles of candy with them. No one got to bed on time last night. The chaos this morning was much more subdued, but it still did not resemble normal. The last of Kiki’s friends just went home and I have declared an hour of quiet time. Gleek and Patches particularly need it even though they don’t want it. I don’t know that any of them will actually fall asleep and nap, but at least this way I am providing the space for them to do so. This hour of quiet time is something I’m going to have to do much more often as we head into summer. Otherwise we get cranky with everyone home all day long.

The invasion of the K’s completely nixed any chance of a normal bedtime tonight. (Kiki’s four friends all have names that begin with the same letter of the alphabet as her name. They think this is the coolest thing ever.) In fact I’ve spent most of the evening segregating Link, Gleek, and Patch away from the four K’s because Kiki wants to have her friends for herself. Naturally Link, Gleek, and Patch all want to be where these cool new visitors are, particularly since the visitors brought fistfuls of pixie stix. I managed the trick by letting Link play on my computer and giving Gleek and Patches a movie upstairs. Also I gave them lots of treats. There was no way I was going to be able to get the younger ones to bed on time. I didn’t even try. This means that at 9:30 an over-stimulated, over-sugared Gleek was ready to melt into a puddle of scream.

I lured Gleek and Patch into bed by saying that they could snuggle together in the same bed. They love this kind of ‘sleepover.’ It lasted about 3 minutes before they squabbled and I separated them for the night. Link also wanted to be where the party was, but didn’t argue too hard when I sent him to bed with his gameboy. I’ll deal with making him stop playing later. Of course the four K’s were filling the house with loud laughter and loudish music during this period. I’m glad they’re having fun, but I ache for quiet with no children in it.

During the middle of all the chaos, Howard called to give me an update on when he’d be home. Mid-call he had his phone shanghaied by Julie Wright who wanted to say hello to me. I love Julie. At cons we go out to lunch and have delightful conversations about all sorts of stuff. Howard also passed along greetings from other friends. It made me realize how much I wanted to be there at Conduit rather than in my kitchen full of teenagers and children. I want to be here too. I want Kiki to have her wonderful teenage girl sleep over. I guess I’m just a little sad I have choose between a once-per-year birthday or a once-per-year convention. Or maybe I’m sad that my meetings with these friends are so rare. I may have to change that. I should make some plans to get together with them all. I don’t want to have to wait until next year.

For now Gleek and Patch have dropped into exhausted slumber. Next I need to tackle Link and the four K’s.

Today is the first day of Conduit, a science fiction convention in Salt Lake City, and I am not there. I’m not going to be there at all. This is sad because this particular convention is like a family reunion. There are so many friends that I love to talk to and it is nice to have them gathered in one convenient location. But conventions always make me excited, and motivated, and ready to move fast. Right now what I really need is to slow down. I’ve been running fast for months on end. I’ve just recently felt like I’m finding more of a balance between family and business. I really need to not disrupt that, even if it means missing out on seeing my friends.

Instead of being at Conduit, I am hosting Kiki’s birthday slumber party. Shrieks of laughter are floating up the stairs from where four teenage girls are playing Cannibal Pygmies in the Jungle of Doom. Kiki has managed to collect an amazing group of friends who are all just as geeky as she is. Instead of going gaga over some boy band star, these girls go gaga over characters from video games and manga. Only they don’t bother with the gaga very much, they’re too busy teasing each other and laughing a lot. I am so grateful for these friends. For the first time in her life Kiki has a group of peers in which she really belongs. So I’m happy to host the event that lets these girls all hang out together.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be cooking lots of breakfast. I’m being very startled at the amount of food these girls are putting away tonight. They’re all in the midst of growth spurts and are ravenous. I knew Kiki was eating more and growing fast, but multiplying that by 4 was a little startling. Dinner leftovers were not a problem. This is probably a good thing because Kiki deliberately made the food as creepy as possible. Sickly green mashed potatoes with red spots anyone? It is all part of Kiki’s “creepy house” birthday theme. She made a treasure hunt, created a creepy songs playlist, and selected games all on this theme. Later they’ll play ghost in the graveyard outside and watch Corpse Bride. Kiki has planned it all. All I’m having to do is provide the location and the food… and curb some of the enthusiastic ideas. I nixed the idea of having burning candles. I know how creative teen girls can get when they’re provided with open flame.

After the crowd goes home, I’ll have some more merchandise shipping to do. Sunday will be a recovery day. And then I’ll be on into the multitude of events planned for the last week of school.

I suppose I could have crammed some Conduit attendance into that schedule, but honestly Kiki’s birthday has been maneuvered around business concerns for at least the last three or four years. It is about time for her birthday celebration to bump a business event. Howard did go up to Conduit this evening. Mostly he went because he had a commitment to do a podcast. Escaping from the invasion of teenage girls was just a secondary benefit. Howard will be at home tomorrow though. He needs to focus on getting the next book done rather than on a convention appearance.

I did not get my outdoor hour today. This is the fault of the weather, which was chilly and rainy. However, I did spend two hours out of my house at a luncheon with other neighborhood moms. I’m going to count that since it was still out. It was really nice to get to sit and talk. After the luncheon, I spent the afternoon folding and packaging shirts. The helper I’d lined up decided that her life was too stressful for her to commit to helping me, so I was doing the shipping alone. It wasn’t bad since the size of the job is so much smaller. Also I only have about half of the merchandise due to production delays. The rest of the merch will be arriving on Saturday and early next week. So Instead of one largish shipping day, I’m having three medium ones. (Note: “medium” is about 50 packages.) I’ve currently done all of the packing that I have the merch for. The next two days will be back to normal and then Saturday there will be further packing.

We’re already in production on our next merchandise. Pre-orders for that will probably be the first or second week of June. Late June or early July is when we’ll have pre-orders for Hold Horses. July and August are the big conventions, so that is the last of the new merchandise until after Howard’s next book.

Due to a storm rolling in, the evening felt later than it actually was. Thus it came to be 7:30 pm with three quarters of my kids in bed. The peace and quiet is joyous. Link and Gleek are reading and Patch has already fallen asleep. I’m almost done mommying for the day.

I have not been outside much for the last 9 months. This made sense in the middle of Winter when the temperatures were below freezing. But it has been months since we’ve had a below freezing day, and I still haven’t been getting outside. I’m not sure why. I love being outside. I love wandering through my yard in the spring. I’ll meander slowly noting which plants are blooming, which plants are getting ready to bloom, and which plants are beginning to sprout after their winter sleep. I’ve lived in this house for a decade. Most of the trees which shade the yard I planted with my own hands. All of the flowers and shrubs are ones that I chose. This is very much my place and seeing it come to life in the Spring heals my spirit. I am calmer and happier when I’ve spent time with my plants and dirt. I shed tears when I realized that this year’s daffodils bloomed and faded before I ever took the time to go enjoy them.

I’ve decided to fix this problem. I am assigning myself a daily hour of therapy. I must spend that hour outside. I can play with kids, or take a walk, or just lay on the grass to stare at clouds, but I must be outside. I suspect that most of the time the hour will be spent on garden tending projects. Wandering and looking at my plants makes me remember all the hopes and dreams I had for the various garden beds. Then my hands itch to work. Today I got started by clearing out a couple of neglected beds. I never realized how much I missed weeding. I love giving plants the space to flourish. I love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I’ve made a garden bed beautiful.

The heat of summer is near and so most of my outside hours will have to be early morning or late evening. For this year my focus will be on getting weeds under control. All of my beds have run wild. It is amazing to me how many of my flowers continue to survive despite being overtaken by grass and bindweed. I will spend the summer clearing the beds out and preparing them, then in the Fall I can plant new things so that my garden can be even more beautiful next year. The peace that gardening brings to my heart is beauty enough to last me for this year.

After several Sunday afternoons of neglect, I finally got back to my family photo book layout project. I’m so glad I did, because the 90 minutes I spent sorting through memories stored as pictures and journal entries, made me want to go upstairs and be with my kids. The process of putting together the book for last year made me realize some things about right now that I want to have recorded. We have pictures of the special events, the birthdays, the zoo trips, but those are only a small fraction of the year. I realized that I want to take some pictures and write some blog stuff about the things that are common. My kids are constantly growing and changing, today’s regular activities will pass into memory as they become new people.

The first photo I took was of Kiki playing a video game while Gleek and Patch watched. Kiki has gotten really good at video games. When a game hooks her, she will play all the way through to the end. When she gets stuck, she’ll search on the internet for hints on how to solve the dilemma. The other kids like watching her play. They get to see the whole story without having to do all of the work. Only watching Kiki play is even better than a movie because it is interactive. Kiki will sometimes do requests. They spend a lot of time in giggle-worthy activities like chasing chickens.

Next I went upstairs and photographed Link playing one of his elaborate homemade games. Link carefully drew a game board using dry erase markers on a white board. He had out his set of 30 blue six-sided dice. The dice were used by an assortment of wooden craft blocks that he’d colored to be stars or Nintendo characters. I think there may also have been toy hamsters in the mix. Link plays games like this frequently. Sometimes the pieces and game boards are made of paper. Sometimes they are just drawings on paper. Sometimes the boards have a third dimension and are constructed of blocks or legos. The games are often based on video games that he plays, but they always involve variations. The rules are invariably complex. Sometimes Link sets up a game so that Gleek or Patch can play with him. Other times he prefers to play alone. Link loves these games. When the time comes to put it away, he carefully saves all the pieces so that he can start the game up again where he left off. I try to respect his emotional need to preserve the games he loves even though I know that he is unlikely to ever come back to this particular game. Tomorrow there will be a new game, with a new mix of pieces and a new set of rules. It may be similar, but will never be identical.

Then I took Gleek outside to water her flowers. Patch followed us. This is the time of year when I love my yard most. Things are in bloom, the grass is green, and the weeds have not yet taken over. It was good for me to get outside. Gleek and Patch ended up on the swings. I snagged the camera to catch this typical behavior. It took us several tries, but we managed to get one with Gleek flying through the air as she jumped off a swing. She is beautiful in flight. Then I put the camera away and wandered through my yard. My observations of flowers and plants were interrupted with frequent cries of “Mommy! Watch me!” or “Mommy! Push me!” It is Sunday afternoon. I had no pressing concerns, no business tasks are allowed. For once I was at the disposal of my children. It was wonderful to answer “Okay.” instead of “Wait a minute.”

The peace of this afternoon has me realizing that I’m not here for my kids enough. I’m in the house physically, but my brain is shipping books, or pondering merchandise, or planning layout, or planning the summer schedule, or doing the dishes. I so rarely take the time to give my kids full attention. I think that this is what my Sunday afternoons need to be for. This summer I will spend Sunday afternoons playing with and listening to my children.

1. I love daffodils. They bloomed and faded while I was busy. I love lilacs and wisteria. I only noticed today that they are in full bloom. The days and weeks keep zipping by me. I always have more things to do than can possibly get done in a day. Oddly this makes me feel like I’ve become boring. People ask me whats going on in my life and I have the same answers to give. I’m still shipping merchandise. I’m still working layouts. I’m still behind on housework. I still intend to get outside and garden, but probably won’t actually do it. All that stuff is interesting to me, but it is hard to make it sound interesting in the 60-seconds-or-less answer a polite social inquiry calls for. Alternately, the person asking the question is a good friend and has already heard all the details of routines. So, despite the fact that being a partner in a cartooning business is out of the ordinary, I feel boring.

2. This week I tried to make an appointment with our family doctor, only to be told that he is on extended sick leave. It turns out that he has cancer, a nasty sarcoma that has already metastasized. The prognosis is not good. For ten years Jim has been there for my kids anytime they were sick. He’s the one who sent me to the hospital when Gleek was knocked flat with RSV. He is the one who helped me figure out which medication Link needed for his ADD. He weighed my babies and measured their growth. He knew all of us by name and always greeted everyone with a smile and a handshake. He long ago made the shift from doctor to friend. I know it is illogical, but it feels wrong for a doctor to suffer from cancer. Somehow it seems like doctors should be immune. I like the other doctors in the office, they are all very qualified people, but I will miss Jim. My kids will miss Jim. I miss him already.

3. Both a close friend and a person whose blog I read, have been suffering from eye problems. This has me paying much more attention to how much I depend upon my sight for the things I do and exactly how my vision works. Then Howard handed me a mini to look at and I had to move it farther away so that I could see it. My hand expected my focal length to be in one place, but my eyes needed it two inches further away. Add to that the fact that my eyes are tired and achy a lot lately and that when I take my glasses off things look different, but not worse. I think it is time for new glasses. This is a logical assumption since I’ve not had my eyes checked for about 6 years. (Not urgent, then no money, then no time) So the logical brain says “new glasses” and the hypochondriac brain is convinced that I’m going to go blind and that it is just the first symptom of a terminal illness. Hypochondriac’s wild theory is supported by these other evidences of eye trouble, perhaps it is a plague of some sort, or maybe a psycho marketing ploy for the movie Blindness. And then I shove paranoid hypochondriac back into her little box and tell her to shut up until I need to write creepy fiction.

4. I finally figured out how Link can get out of the shower smelling just as dirty as he went in even though he swears he uses soap. Tonight I squirted out a small amount of shampoo for him and he gasped “That much?” He further informed me that he doesn’t usually wash the top of his head because he doesn’t want shampoo in his eyes. We then spoke in detail about how he needs to wash all over with sufficient quantities of soap. He got out of the shower smelling really clean for the first time in weeks.

Today I saw a picture of Kiki three years ago. I remember at the time the picture was taken, I thought she was getting really big. Now I look at that photo and she looks so small. Kiki has gained nearly a foot of height, slimmed down, and developed curves. My little girl has turned into a teenager. Thus far parenting a teen has been pretty easy. Of course I’ve only been doing it for less than a day, so I’m not going to rest on my laurels.

Parents are frequently frightened of the teen years. Perhaps I should be, but I’m not. I like that Kiki is growing more independent and responsible. I like that we can have increasingly complex conversations. Yes we’re going to have some struggles as Kiki strives to create her own identity as separate from our family, but mostly I think it is going to be fun. Babies and toddlers and preschoolers are cute, but teens can play games that I enjoy playing.

Kiki is now a teen and the adventure has only begun.