Random House offer!!!
for my middle grade novel!!!
I just wet my pants!!!
My novel – the one for kids just a tad younger than YA – is going to be published by Random House! THE Random House – the one that publishes Judy Blume and Louis Sachar and Carl Hiaason and the Junie B Jones books! And they’re going to pay me. And release it in hardback before paperback. And I think I just fainted.
I am happily stunned into amazed and exhilarated silence. For now.
Ho.
Lee.
Shmo.
Lee.
a whoosh past my eyes
time flies as fast as they say
the wee one is four!
Today is the Wee One’s birthday – he’s 4! I know it’s cliche, but dang the time has gone by quickly. I can hardly believe that the kid sitting next to me in his underpants, playing with a wooden snake and a toy Yoda was trying to make his way out of my belly this time four years ago. Amazing.
Happy birthday, dude. You’re one helluvan awesome kid.
please come by, say hi
so I won’t be all alone
with finger in nose
The day after tomorrow – that’s Thursday, June 1st at 7pm – is my book signing at BookPeople. Please, if you’re in Austin, or near Austin, or able to teleport yourself to Austin, come visit me.
I think I get to talk and read some of the book and answer questions as well as sign the book. So even if you have a book already and don’t want another one, come by anyway.
Plus, there’s the added bonus that I could go into labor at any moment. Add that to Sharpies and watching me stumble over public speaking and you have yourself quite an evening of fun.
water feels so nice
need pool in my living room
a big fat mermaid
I noticed today that the hairs on my belly now stand up just like the hairs on a baby elephant’s back.
Also, I went swimming.
big blue butt squisher
you are now my BFF
and my crotch’s too
You just don’t know how sexy you are until you get a giant neon blue belt to wear around your hips – on the outside of your clothes (because it’s so bulky). I went to the physical therapist yesterday to get some help with the pelvic drama, and he not only gave me this super hott belt, he showed me how to strum my groin ligaments like a guitar. That was an intimate moment.
I also found out that my entire body is leaning to the left. The Leaning Tower of Pregnant. Not much to do about that right now, though, except to sproing my left groin ligament more than the right one.
You know what was amazing about the PT visit? The therapist asked me to stand with my back to him and then he asked me to march in place. Finding this excruciating, I calmly said, "Uh-uh." Then he kneeled down, firmly grabbed my hips and squished them together as hard as he could. Then he asked me to march again. It didn’t hurt! I asked him if he wouldn’t like to fashion up some kind of radio flyer he could ride in and I could attach it to my backside like a little trailer and he could just smash my hips together all day, but that’s when he gave me the sexy belt. I guess the belt is easier to manage. It doesn’t work as well, though.
How strong do you think the Wee One is? Could I get him to follow me around all day squishing my hips together? I bet you a million dollars that if Elton John could get pregnant he would totally have a little ass-smashing person follow him around every where he went.
Maybe I should put an ad on Craigslist.
an experiment
and now we have our answer
tee ball – not for us
For anyone looking for a well-organized, affordable entry into baseball for their kiddo, I highly suggest AVOIDING the Leander/Cedar Park Youth League AS IF IT WERE THE BIRD FLU.
If you remember, we were doing the "no rain" dance around here a few weeks ago so that the Wee One’s last tee ball game and trophy ceremony wouldn’t be canceled. Alas, our dance didn’t do the trick and there were storms all night. The game was canceled and supposedly never rescheduled. I was told (after contacting the "commissioner") to wait to hear from our coach about when the closing ceremonies would be held.
I found out TODAY that closing ceremonies were held on the 14th. NO ONE CALLED. NO ONE EMAILED. No one made any attempt to contact us and let us know.
Now, I realize that most of the other kids on the Wee One’s team have older siblings in the league and thus are somehow privy to important and yet secret information like WHEN THE SEASON EFFING ENDS, but come on. Should we be penalized because we don’t have an older child playing? Is it my responsibility to hound the coach and leave a cell phone message every single day until I hear what’s going on? I thought the coach and/or the "team mom" were in charge of letting parents know what was going on. Silly me.
Now the wee one has no closure. And that sounds a bit ridiculous, I know, but he doesn’t understand why tee ball is spontaneously over. He was expecting at least a trophy. And so was I. I guess I’ll have to waddle myself down there and raise holy hell so he can get his trophy and I can let them know just how poorly organized their "league" is.
I’m pissed, because we liked the coach (when he bothered to tell us what was going on) and we enjoyed the games (that we knew about), and we really liked the quality of the Wee One’s snazzy tee ball cap. Was this "half-season" worth $75, plus the cost of a bat, a glove, pants, etc.? I don’t think so.
You suck, Leander/Cedar Park Youth League.
You suck big, sweaty donkey balls.
And you owe us a trophy.
it’s down to the wire
but let’s pretend that it’s not
except that it is
The Wee One has made a sacrifice, but he doesn’t know he has, so maybe it doesn’t count. I have RSVP’d no for a birthday party that’s tomorrow. It’s the first time we haven’t gone to a party we’ve been invited to. And this one’s gonna be a doozy – water slides, pony rides, the works. But I said we weren’t going and so we’re not, even though I’m feeling guilty about it now.
The thing is, we have so much to do this weekend… in anticipation of the baby… in keeping the house from being condemned by health inspectors… in taking care of the yard… in about a million other things. And my husband, lucky bastard that he is, is getting to take care of most this single-handedly because I have about three hours of energy a day and then my legs collapse in on themselves and I’m done.
What does this have to do with the party, you ask? Well, the only way for us to be able to go to the party would be for me to escort the Wee One alone, while Super Daddy stays home to do a bunch of stuff. But I just can’t do it. Not right now. Not when it’s 95 degrees outside. Not when I have to smell pony poop and listen to kids scream. Not when I won’t know any other mommies at the party and will end up standing alone in a corner of the yard, sweating into my drink.
So it’s a selfish thing, the RSVP-ing no. I know the Wee One would have a blast – or at least I think he would. I do wonder, though, if maybe I’m making that up, because I remember going to big blowout birthday parties as a kid and generally there’s crying and barfing and a bit of fun and that’s it. Nothing spectacular. But still, I feel bad. Not THAT bad, but a little bit bad.
Anyway, the Wee One’s birthday is coming up and yes, he will have a party, and no there won’t be ponies, and yes I’m worried about some kind of birthday party karma biting us in the ass. But I’m not THAT worried. I’m mostly worried about talking my crotch bones into allowing me to wander around Terra Toys and/or Toy Joy long enough to find some seriously bad ass birthday presents. But I think that’s another post.
So no birthday party tomorrow. But we will do laundry and try to turn our disastrously unorganized office into a nursery. If that doesn’t doesn’t sound like a party, I don’t know what does.
quickly assembled
porcupine cake tastes quite good
and not too stabby
The Wee One’s birthday is in just less than two weeks, and because we’ve (well, I’ve) decided to not have gabillion kids at his birthday party, we brought a cake to school today so they could celebrate during snack time. Conveniently, it was also the last day of school, so we celebrated that, too. (Do parents really celebrate the last day of school? It’s more a porcupine cake of mourning. I jest, of course. Not really.)
Anyway, the Wee One woke up with a spectacular hairdo this morning. It totally matched his cake and I couldn’t resist recording it for posterity. So here you go:
The Wee One and the Porcupine Cake… Separated at Birth
(Click on the pic for a ginormous version)
swollen fingers, toes
the cankles have got to go
party is over
I think I’m over this whole "being pregnant" thing. My body feels like one of those Las Vegas hotels looks just seconds before its implosion – the quakey girders, the unstable foundation, the rippling roof. My bones feel like they’re about to just collapse in on each other. And I’ve gained 20 pounds LESS than when I was preggers with the Wee One.
In a really fun new development, all of the joints in my hands hurt like crazy. I don’t know if it’s carpal tunnel or something more insidious. But, dammit, waking up in the middle of the night with creaky, painful old lady hands sucks farts. Plus, my feet have stopped working, as they have turned into little cannonballs of pain. And my crotch bones are giving out on me. I don’t even know what crotch bones are (public bone?), but holy geez, my crotch is going to snap in two any second now.
Other than that, I’m excellent. I just hope someone, somewhere doesn’t find a mysterious t-shaped dynamite blower-upper box thing and give a countdown. The ensuing dust cloud of my implosion will block out the sun and probably cause a new ice age.
6 weeks to go. Or thereabouts.
And this post has nothing to do with the fact that my friend gave birth to her son on Monday and I got to go hold him yesterday and he mewed at me.
some more horn tooting
or, we could say "marketing"
sure, yeah, let’s say that
There’s a review of Haiku Mama up on the Seattle Times site. And there’s an interview that was written for the Houston Chronicle and picked up by a couple of different papers. I never did actually see the interview in the Houston paper, though. (At the end, there’s a Brad and Angelina baby thing – and I meant it as a joke. It kind of doesn’t come off that way. But really. I was joking.)
Also, if I’m brave enough (and if I can find the camera USB cord) I might post some pictures from the signings. My hair is very short and my belly is very large, though, so I will continue to ponder.
This was the most boring, self-centered post ever, wasn’t it? Ah, well.
Haiku of the Day 