Day: January 7, 2014

Things I Didn’t Expect When I Decided to Have Kids

By / January 7, 2014 / 1 Comment

Sitting in a 30 degree barn trying to edit entries for a PDF while my daughter sits on the back of a horse who is not entirely on board with this whole trotting thing. My fingers were gloved, but cold and at least half of the time was spent adjusting the saddle or stirrups. Naturally her last proclamation as we left the barn was “I want my own pony!”

Sitting down at the table and reaching across to touch my son’s hand, because I want his full attention for my apology. I owed it, because in response to his homework stress I had increased my volume and frustration. He was overwhelmed and I made it worse instead of teaching him how to navigate through it. I get tired, especially after a long day of trying to make all the good parenting moves even when they run counter to my inclinations. So I snapped at him and he ran to his room. So I apologized as my father once apologized to me in similar circumstances.

Handing a kid a timer with instructions to turn off the rice when it beeps so that I can run to the store and by bread for a different kid who doesn’t like the rice dish. Normally I’d tell him he’ll survive or let him find other food, but I had lingering lack-of-bread guilt from all weekend long when we also did not have bread because I kept not going to the store.

Running to the library at 8:30pm because Netflix doesn’t have any good documentaries on WWI that are available for streaming. (Also there was no Netflix when I decided to have kids, so there’s that too.)

The sheer quantity of dishes and clothing that I would have to argue the children into cleaning. Even though the fact that they have chores should not, on any day, be a surprising and devastating piece of news. Yet somehow the announcement of chores is always greeted as the End of Days. Except this afternoon my teenager brought the can in from the curb unasked, because kids like to confuse parents with hopeful signs of maturity.

To be scolded by my cat. I know that has nothing to do with having kids, but really I never thought I’d have a cat. I’m allergic to them. For the longest time being around them gave me asthma attacks, but this one showed up and somehow I acclimated to her and now I’m fine so long as I don’t rub my face on her. Which leads me to the place where I have a small furry creature who follows me around and yells at me because I’m reading her mind improperly.

That they would make me laugh, not just in an “oh look how cute” way, but also in an intelligently clever way.

Yes all these things happened today. Tomorrow I’ll learn more new things.

Working on Strength of Wild Horses

By / January 7, 2014

I stood at our family room table sorting pieces of paper into piles. Each paper represented a person who supported my Kickstarter project. Each pile was a pledge level. It was interesting and humbling to see all those packing sheets spread out: support made tangible. I recognized many names and didn’t recognize many more. Some of the people wrote little notes into the “other notes” field I put into the survey forms. As I sorted, I read the notes. Truly this project keeps on giving to me even when it is using lots of my time and energy. That is the best sort of project, where the work itself is its own reward. The future is uncertain, I can’t guarantee what I’ll be able to do or if I’ll ever get another project like this one. That’s okay. I have this one and 300 piece of paper which means that 300 people get to have it too.

The point of the sorting was to make sure that I have all the names to go into the book and to get the correct counts for cards to order. Now those papers will sit in a file box waiting until I have books to send. Creating the book is my task now. I’ve been working on it.

Strength of Wild Horses has a cover. I’m most of the way through placing the images and interior text. I hope to send it to print very soon. Then I’ll create the postcards, note cards, bookplates, and prints. After that, there is waiting for books to arrive. I’m looking forward to all of it except the waiting part.