nudle

Dear Han,

I am going to write this very fast so I can go write. Someday your mom is going to have a book on the shelves! I'm rolling a new project around in my head, and it's uncomfortable. So I'd better get to work!

But first...

It's been a long time since I wrote to you about you. You've grown about a foot and more into your sassy, headstrong, loving, observant self. When you're mad at me you shout, "I'm rude at you!" or "You're stupid at me!" But yesterday I did something to make you really mad, like insist that you get dressed before you ate breakfast, and you ran to the sofa, crying, and screamed, "I hate you, Mom! I hate hate hate you!" 

I don't hold that against you. It happens. 

You ended up completely missing breakfast, so it's lucky your preschool always has food on the table when we get there. You ate three bowls of granola and a lot of banana slices, and then you were your normal, non-demonic self again.

You only ever want to wear short-sleeved t-shirts, shorts and the checkered Vans you chose all by yourself when we went shoe shopping. You stick your hands in your pockets when you walk. You're missing your two front teeth and one on the bottom. It gives you a scrappy look. Plus, you need a haircut.

You love gum.

You notice everything! You're quick to smile and what you seem to want most (besides gum and love) is to make people laugh. You've discovered that the words "poop" and "toilet" and "butt" get laughs, so you use them frequently even though they earn you frowns from me. 

Lately, you've started role playing with your toys, using voices and creating worlds and characters. Iona did this at your age. (She still does it, I suspect, but don't tell anyone.) I love listening to you play by yourself in this way.

At school, you have friends you play with a lot, particularly Leo and Cormack. Cormack is missing a tooth, but Leo is the one who walked up to me the other day and announced, "I'm Toothless!" I was taken aback until he explained Toothless is a character in the movie, "How to Train Your Dragon."

You are the most curious person I know, and by that I mean you want to know everything, not that you're odd or strange. Yesterday the young tattooed philosopher window washer who was here at our house all day noticed how inquisitive you are. "That's good," he said. I agree.

I love you, Hanster Monster, to infinity and beyond!

Mom

What I love* today:

Coffee. 

Robert Horton, a principled, drily funny man of movies and comic books. I try not to miss him Wednesdays on Steve Scher's Weekday and I usually do miss him.

My kids, duh. (The 'duh' is a tribute to Iona. Yesterday when I picked her up from school late, she glared. I asked if it was an accusatory look. "Yes!" "But I'm only four minutes late." "Duh, that's a long time when it's raining, Mom!")

Corn chips, specifically the ones from the brand Late July.

Getting a good night's sleep after several nights of not getting a good night's sleep. Han is newly sleeping in a big-boy bed, and though he is excited and proud, he's afraid. Like we're all afraid of change. Afraid when relationships change, afraid when we change, and afraid when the bars are taken off the bed. Afraid enough to yell for Mom at three in the morning several nights in a row. Then Mom's afraid enough of lots of things that she doesn't go back to sleep. And talk about scary, try sleep-deprived Mom. 

Escaping all connected devices (this is what I'm doing next) to go write in the other house, AKA the guest room over our garage, AKA MY STUDIO!

. . . . . . . . . .

* I try not to use the word 'love' in a casual way. But I don't want to replace it with 'like a lot' right this moment; I need to get to the studio and write. I am translating the book into first person for draft #3. And, at some point, I need to sign up for swim lessons for scaredy-cat swimmers (fills me with dread), partly as research (MC is afraid of water) and partly because I'd like to make up with water someday and be able to have fun in it, with my family. That'll be a future blog post, or series of them. Also, when am I going to start that professional writer's blog? What shall I call it? How am I going to execute it? Now is when I wish I knew how to make a web site. Who wants to make me a web site? If only my best designer friend wasn't so busy making a movie. Okay, enough of this. Gotta go.

Just after I throw in random photos of a recent nice day, taken with iPhone because my camera is broken again.

  

She's turning ten.

Nothing I can do.

Surely I am not the first person to feel like standing up and yelling expletives because my friend is dying. I am sure others have felt like walking around the house screaming bad words. I feel like yelling. I feel like bellowing! Hey Death, you DICK! Eat shit, you fucker! I am full of rage that makes me cry. I want a drink, but I get myself one and that doesn't do any good.

I'm sorry. I am sorry.

 

Dinner Redux by Art Olsen.

Saturday evening, August 14, almost two weeks ago, fifteen friends sat down to dinner. Art Olsen cooked, with help from sous-chefs and servers and friends, and I was lucky to be included. Thank you to Art, Tonnie, Tessa, Hannah, Nick, Kerri, Angie, Jarrett, Brian and probably someone else I am forgetting, for an unforgettable time.

Art Olsen 

Tessa, Hannah, Tonnie

The amount of training, practice, planning, procuring, cooking and eating that went into this dinner was mind-blowing. It deserves a proper story; that's why this post is long. (Read all the way to the end for more photos.)

Art's little black book

Dear Iona,

You are growing up! Eight has come too soon for me. Last night you were reading chapter ten in Mandy, and you worked out nevertheless on your own. You still have trouble falling asleep by yourself and are recently plagued by nightmares at that point just between waking and slumber. Last night, zombies and kidnapping. I am sorry that I was too irritable to be the one to put you back to bed; luckily, Dad was home. He came back upstairs and said, "I didn't mention the shape shifters that come up through the floor." He was trying to snap me out of my mood, and it worked. 

You are a little anxious about going to your new school in September, but you are excited too. You are independent and confident, and are willing to try anything. That's why I'm surprised when you actually need me, but occasionally you do. A couple weeks ago you got homesick when sleeping over at Aunt Kathy's. A couple days later, the first day of boating camp, you needed to come home early because you were having a bad day. The next day you stuck it out and had a great time, kayaking and rowing and sailing and paddle-boarding and jumping into the lake.

You love to run fast and chase and be chased by your friends. Yesterday evening I watched you and five girls run after each other and shout, barely stopping to pay attention to the cranky lady who admonished you to be quiet. 

A minute ago you came upstairs tousled and long-legged in your yellow pajamas with pink, blue and green butterflies. You were sniffing and rubbing your nose red. You still refuse to blow your nose, as you have forever. You drank a glass of water, shuffled to the green armchair and picked up The Adventures of Daniel Boom, Loud Boy. I asked you what it was about and you read the inside flap about an evil doctor who wants to rid the world of all children, or at least force them to be well-mannered. Horrors! As you read you waved those animal toes at me, the ones you inherited from your father. 

And of course, as always, I love you,

Mom

Dear Han,

One week ago today (it feels like five minutes) we all, with Grandma and Granddad and Kathy and Delaney, went to family court. Finally, our union is done! In the eyes of the world, we are a family. Our lawyer was efficient and funny, supplying a running patter that was part instruction, part explanation and part humorous commentary. He has helped with five thousand adoptions! One of his families had forty family members and friends in the courtroom. He said, "The judges love it. It's the only happy thing they see in family court." Then, addressing you and pointing down the hall at a shackled, orange-jump-suited man being led into a courtroom he said, "And you want to avoid that look if you can, son. Now congratulations, go celebrate, eat junk food."

You want so badly to talk these days! When, in a book, you see a cat (or a fox or tiger or bat) you yell, "Cat! Cat! Cat!" You have a lot of words, including beer. When you fall or hit your head on something you tearfully reenact it for me, pointing to the offending piece of floor or furniture and saying, "There! There!" You occasionally throw mini-tantrums, kicking your feet and making your mouth into an O as you cry and lie down. You are not a fan of costumed children or adults. But you love to celebrate everything, hoisting your schooner of milk and crying, "Coo!" 

Coo to all of us, Hanster Monster.

Love,
Mom

   

Dear Han,

We are in the office. It's sunny out, and this room is cozy. I am more relaxed than I've been in days, and you are sitting on my lap at the desk, in front of the computers. I feel warmth from your small, solid body. You move the mouse and it messes up my typing and when something happens on the screen, an odd pop-up window or a flash of mistake, you say, "Oh, cool!" I take the mouse out of your hand (you are now examining the underside) and you say, "No, no." You pick up the rollerball pen and take the lid off, put the lid on, take the lid off, put the lid on. You say, "Guck." I think you mean stuck, but who knows? You pick up the stapler and the pen falls to the floor. Out come the staples. "Uh, oh," you say. Half the staples fall to the floor. You pull the spring, I say no. You reach for the return address stamp. The papers to hire the attorney to finalize your adoption sit on the desk in front of us, waiting to be put in the already-addressed envelope. I will mail them on the way to the park, after we have a snack. You will fall asleep in the stroller on the way home.

Love,

Mama

Rabbit story.

Back when it was cold.