Memorial Day weekend 2011 was a blast, a rolling carnival of family, friends, food, and summery weather. I even got to leave the house after dark one night to play a game of trivia. My dad and I were a team and we came in second place, not too shabby.
HR continues to surprise and delight with his baby-type brand of awesomeness. For example, he hasn't seen my grandmother for over a month, but as soon as he saw her this time he started clapping because he remembered she taught him to play Patty Cake. How does that little brain work? Clearly he understands way more than I'm ready to imagine. He's still mighty tentative about walking, but I know he'll get there soon enough. And his vocabulary now includes a mangled screeching sound which I think means "meow" - he makes it when he sees a cat picture anyway. It's fairly adorable. I love to observe him when he's playing by himself, watching him move his toys around while making a little sputtering noise, oblivious to the world.
I know this is all pretty standard parental gushing, but he's my baby and I get to be smitten over and over.
On another tip, it's no secret that I've wanted to be a young adult author for as long as I can remember. I've been working on the same manuscript for years, and it's been languishing, unfinished, pretty much since I got pregnant. I was in a brief fever over it in the fall, as I tend to experience academic nostalgia that time of year, and I also got to read a finished draft of my cousin's novel which was very inspiring. Unfortunately I lacked the discipline to keep going for more than a couple of weeks. But now I'm back into it in a major way. I really want to finish this draft and just do something with it already. So I'm hoping I can keep on keep on keep on for real this time.
You know what helped me re-catch the fire? Having a husband who has gotten a taste of being a stay-at-home dad. He's constantly reminding me how great it will be when I'm published and successful and he won't even have to work nights and weekends anymore because I'll be supporting him with my big-time author income. "Do you think Judy Blume's husband is doing X right now?" he'll say, as he heads to his second shift or works into the night or heads out to shovel two feet of snow from the driveway. (Well Mr. Judy Blume probably is doing some kind of X, I believe he has a career of his own, but let's ignore that for discussion's sake).
Obviously I'm aware that 1) I'll be extremely lucky if I'm ever published at all and 2) even published authors don't make enough money to not have to supplement with other careers unless they do happen to be Rowling herself or Stephen King. But it's a joke and a dream Mike and I share, and I need the joke and the dream to keep this part of me going. And really, in my quest to emulate Judy Blume's career, why couldn't I turn out to be the next Judy Blume? Why not dream that big? I'll never know if I don't put in the work. Ah, the tricky part. I'll keep you posted.
Is it ironic that Frank Portman from MTX went on to become a young adult author, or a self-fulfilling prophecy?
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