Sock, Library visit & Word Count

There's a wool sock on our back porch. It's probably a gift that the cats brought us. I know that Mori really really loves wool to the point where he ruined a brand new cashmere coat a boyfriend bought me by biting a huge hole in it. I ditched the bf and I still have the cat. I guess Mori thought we'd like the wool sock. However it seems to disturb Special K who keeps asking why it's there.

Today I dropped off a box full of books at Bookbuyers, then went to the library and talked to the children's librarians. Neither of them had heard of the New Voices Award, or of Lee & Low Books. Oh, well. I wrote my cover letter today. I also wrote 800 words of The Road to Mandalay. I just wrote some random scenes. I do have the entire novel fleshed out in my head, but I've been stuck on how to make it flow. This way is much more productive.

I've decided I'll aim for 500 words a day. At that rate, I can write 10k (novel length) in 200 days.
Word count for the day: 1050
The Road to Mandalay: 2500. 97500 to go

Nanowrimo & writing status report

Last night C talked me out of doing Nanowrimo this year. That's where you write a "novel" in the month of November. Well, it's 50,0000 words, so it's technically a novella. He pointed out to me that now probably wasn't the best time and I could try to do it next year. That satisfied me.

Now some of you are probably thinking I'm insane since you don't know how I find the time to write anyway. And it's a good thing that I'm married to this man who manages to steer away from the ditch. Then I just realised I can have some of the benefits of a nanowrimo right here by blogging about my writing goals and progress.

As I mentioned, I'm writing another children's picture book. It's called Mya Mya Marionette. The deadline for the contest is October 31, so that's the deadline. I'd like to have it done before then so hopefully it gets there before the deluge. I'm shooting for October 15th to have the final draft ready. Just today I finished the second draft. I think I now have all the scenes I want fleshed out and I think the plot, characters and their motivations are clear, at least to me. So now I need to show it to some folks to see if they understand what's going on. It feels short to me, but then I also don't have an incredibly complex amount of information to convey like I did with Greg. So if you want to read it, please let me know.

I've only written two chapters of my novel, The Road to Mandalay which isn't as much as I'd like. And the chapters are short at 1700 words. I need to have at least 2500 words before my writing workshop at the end of October. That's another reason I need to finish up Mya Mya before the deadline.

My nonfiction book on the other hand is 6800 words, so there's progress there and I don't think it's going to be a long book. I also want to write a book proposal and start submitting it before I finish the book. I would actually rather work on my non-fiction book, but the writing workshop isn't about non-fiction.

Oh, I also wrote a 1200 word short science fiction story "Cascade". I'm taking it to the writing workshop.

Well it was certainly helpful to lay this all out here. I do spend a lot of time with my butt in the chair considering that I have two small children, but I wish my output was higher. I'm not sure if that's realistic considering that two of my books are children's picture books, but it would make me feel better. So after I've finished Mya Mya Marionette, I may try a daily word count with being able to borrow/lend within a week. I'll start low at 250 a day. Oh, and I suppose I should write before I blog. Sorry, people. This is over 500 words right here.

Yes, this was very helpful. I do regularly churn out prose here. But here I just write. I don't feel the need to write beautiful tightly crafted prose. I sit butt in chair. I put fingers to keyboard. I think. I type. I do edit some. But I don't have the pile of voices in my head telling me I should write something else. That it's all crap. That I will somehow horribly offend someone because of something I write. That I must censor myself before the words even reach the keyboard.

Instead I know that at least some of you reading this are my friends who know and like me. And if you aren't my friend, at least you read to the end of this. Thanks. So maybe I should pretend I'm blogging. I guess anyone can always read and put down the book. Hrm.

I think a daily word count is the way to go. Thanks nanowrimo and thanks readers. I just made a breakthrough.

Inside jokes

Shadesong blogged about how she and her husband shared an inside joke. My husband C and I share a lot too. A lot of them wouldn't even seem funny to outsiders even if we explained the whole story. It takes a special person and a special situation to laugh in the ER. We make a lot of jokes about death too. I think it stems entirely from the past year. We make a lot of jokes that relate to stuff the kids do. The kids have a wide range of peculiar gestures and noises that they make at various stages of development. Sadly I can't blog about most of them lest the teenaged versions of these kids google this blog and descend upon me with all the wrath of outraged adolescence. But you dear reader would laugh and find them sweet and cute.

Well okay I'll share two things with you. Right now Little T is so delighted with the sheer ability to move. Just before he leans forward to move he gives this little grunt of sheer effort mixed pleasure. Sometimes we'll grunt in the same way.

When both kids are particularly outraged about something, they'll fall silent and open their mouths wide to draw in a lung full of air so they can scream their loudest. Special K was kicked out of the nursery for being too loud. And Little T was the loudest in the NICU until he got his first dose of Interferon. C and I will now open our mouths wide to express manic outrage.

Losing & keeping track of time

I haven't lost track of time in a while. I used to lose track of time a lot and I'd get into trouble. I didn't know that keeping track of time was a skill that one could acquire, but apparently it is, because when Little T was in the NICU, I acquired it. I had to learn it, because otherwise we'd get fined if we didn't pick up Special K in time from preschool. Sure there are clocks everywhere, but somehow you have to know that 5, 10, 15 minutes have gone by. You have to eke out each moment, because you have to divide up your time between your baby in the NICU and your child in preschool. Five minutes more of holding your baby means a lot, so you try to time things perfectly.

But yesterday I received some disturbing news (not related to me personally) and I'm coming down with a cold. I've trying somewhat successfully to stave my cold off with vitamin C, echinacea and goldenseal. What I haven't been doing is going to bed early. And so I'm rundown. So yesterday when I received this disturbing news, I lost track of time. Suddenly I looked at the clock and realised I was already supposed to be at my daughter's preschool. Oops.

Anyway it's funny because I didn't even know I had this skill until I found myself rushing to Special K's preschool. Usually I time it so I'm there right on time. I always thought that I had to solve this problem by calendars and external alarms and so on, which do also help, but that internal rhythm is vital.

One of the things I've learned is figuring out how long a task actually takes you. I realised that I consistently underestimated the time for some tasks and overestimated the time for others. That helps a lot too. I guess actually timing those tasks helped getting a better sense of time too.

Silly quizzes now over at LJ

I've decided to do silly quizzes on my Live Journal using the LJ cut tag since they tend to be spammy. If you object, please let me know by commenting here or LJ. You'll continue to receive my scintillating commentary here since I find that LJ doesn't quite give me what I want. Neither does blogspot. Yes, I swing both ways. Can't help it.

Kepler's will reopen with memberships

According to SJMerc, Keplers will reopen on Saturday. "Kepler's will ask customers to sign up as ``members'' with financial pledges of support, a tool often used by public television stations and other non-profits, but uncommon among retailers. Depending on their level of support, Kepler's members will receive gifts or other perks such as reserved parking, invitations to book signings and chances to dine with prominent authors."

Kepler's is too far away to be a big part of my life. And I doubt I'll buy a membership. However I do like having a bookstore within walking distance of my house, so it does motivate me to start buying books at my local bookstore more often.

The reopening of Kepler's as a charity illustrates how wealthy and yet geeky Silicon Valley is. Enough people have thousands of dollars they want to spend on a bookshop to keep Kepler's afloat. Of all the charities I'd want to spend my money on, it wouldn't be a bookshop, but still it makes me glad to live here. It also struck me as slightly absurd. One of the things that keeps me going when things are bad is how absurd life is. I certainly donate dollars to absurd things. Most of my absurd donation dollars go to opera.

Little T's debut & our weekend

C and I were going to the world premiere of the opera Doctor Atomic. Unfortunately our sitter flaked on us, and our nanny had other plans, so we couldn't go. Instead we all went to Beth and Eric's birthday bbq. We haven't been to one of their parties in ages and it was great to see them and Zed.

Little T had never been to their house. He had a wonderful time scooting about on their floor and interacting with people. For someone who only says "gah" and "hi" and raises his arm in what might be a high-five, he communicates very well. He was outraged that someone picked him up off the floor without asking first. He also appeared to comment on what someone was saying by babbling just as the person finished speaking with the right intonation. It was quite funny.

Special K also had a great time and someone said what poise she had. She played Apples to Apples, which I recommend as a good party game for adults and 3 year olds. The cards that the 3 year old puts down and picks can be quite unpredictable, but it makes for an entertaining game and some adults pick weird choices anyway.

This weekend we also packed up two bookshelves worth of books to try to sell to Bookbuyers and then donate to the library. I'm really pleased, because we really need the space for the kids' books and toys. I've also packed up all Special K's 18-month and 2-year clothes to send back to Stacey who kindly gave them from her kids. They're beautiful clothes and Special K was crying at the thought of my sending them away. She still tries to wear the 18m dresses, though at this point, they're the size of shirts on her.

D&D alignment

This quiz purports to calculate your D&D stats
Str 7
Int 15
Wis 15
Dex 10
Con 10
Char 17

I think it actually says a lot more about the quiz makers than me. The question for strength simply asks how much you can bench press. The question for wisdom are about not forgetting things and planning ahead, but have nothing about spirituality. And the questions about charisma were too far too easy IMO. Nothing about leading people on quests that would lead to death -- now that takes charisma.

Here's how my D&D alignment.

Patches

I just took off the patch today, because the nausea was getting to the point where I couldn't ignore it and was causing me stress. I don't need stress. On the plus side, I finished my first draft of my children's book for the New Voices Award. I have no clue if they want a story about a Burmese kid, but they're getting one this year.

At Little T CCS OT apt, his OT talked about cutting back to appointments once a month once he learns how to walk, because Little T has "motor planning skills, good cognitive ability and bright eyes." However she did say I should ask to have his speech evaluated, so I can get it a baseline. It's interesting to see how different OTs view Little T. As I blogged the other day, his Stanford OT thinks he lacks motor planning in speech. I tend to agree with the CCS therapist. We'll see. It scares and excites me to see less of CCS. CCS tends to see a lot of kids with cerebal palsy and also needs to save money. We'll see how it goes.

Hybrid wars, junk food wars and giant squid war

According to the Washington Post, smaller cars are flying off the lots, though it doesn't separate hybrid from non-hybrid cars. All I know is everywhere I look around here I see Priuses. The Economist calls the Prius ugly, but I find it strangely beautiful. I blogged about my Prius envy.

Honda came out with a Honda Hybrid Accord
so Toyota's fighting back with a Toyota Hybrid Camry next year. Unfortunately it's not being produced in Fremont. But where's the Toyota hybrid mini-van supposedly coming in 2007 according to Hybrid cars.com . No-where in sight. It will probably depend on how the Prius and Camry sell. I guess the universe is telling me we don't need actually need one.

Sometimes I think I should move back to England when I read headlines like: Junk food to be banned in schools Of course I suppose the kids could sneak off campus and buy food outside, but it's a lot harder and takes exercise and ingenuity.

And last but not least, the Washington Post reports the first images of a giant squid. It seems they were pretty cruel to the poor creature to capture the image and in the end the creature lost one of its limbs. CNN has a video. At the end of the video, the scientist blithely says the squid is in no danger of dying from losing its tentacle and yet at the beginning of the video, they said they know very little about the giant squid. Typical arrogance of scientists. I hope the big squid is okay and can still capture its prey.

Stress and thankfulness

I read this headline Pregnancy stress passed to baby and my first thought was "Great! Another thing for pregnant moms to be stressed about." On the other hand, "Stress does not cut IVF success" and I had always thought that stress did affect fertility so perhaps the pregnancy study was flawed in some way. The sample size of 74 is very small.

I realised one thing that stresses me is when I think I'm going to have some time to myself and I don't get that time. Special K went to preschool this morning and a respite care worker was supposed to show up to take care of Little T. I was going to work on my children's book and my non-fiction book. I did actually manage to work on both while Special K and Little T played. Mobility is a marvelous thing. Now Little T can entertain himself for fifteen minutes at a time. It's very freeing. However Little T hasn't quite figured out how big and bulky his head is. He keep bonking his head on things and crying. He bonks his head on different things each time, and he doesn't even really hurt himself. It's more that he gets stuck and is annoyed. It's stressful for both of us. I know he needs to learn, but I wish learning didn't have to be so literally painful.

I should also mention that I no longer have a Sims child. I have a mostly potty-trained child. On good days, I do nothing, except occasionally walk with her to the bathroom. On bad days, well, I'm sure you can guess what happens then. Today was a bad day. That was also stressful.

On the plus side, I had time to feel stressed today. And my stress stemmed from ordinary problems of motherhood. Right now I'm watching Little T eat a saltine and scoot on his butt on the floor. And try to figure out how to eat and scoot at the same time. He's mostly mushing up the saltine. He says "gah" and sprays crackers out of his mouth. I feel grateful that he can move around now and get cracker crumbs everywhere, that he has an interest in getting cracker crumbs everywhere. He smiles at me and holds up his cracker and my heart melts.

NICU Grad party, Costco, Speech Therapy & the "no" theory of child development

Yesterday we all went to the NICU grad party. The neonatologists are so personable. We saw twins that were Little T's neighbours in the NICU. It was amazing to see how far one had come. The other...well it's not my story to tell. It made me remember how lucky we are in how far Little T has come. Special K loved the petting zoo and dancing on the stage with the guitar player and other kids.

I've been trying to find long-sleeved clothes for Little T that snap up the front and was being to despair. I went to every kids store around and found nothing, except one yellow one that was too ugly. I did find one outfit online, but it was depressing to order the same outfit 10 times. I even emailed my local mother's club, but one person responded and had 3 outfits.

C said "Maybe Costco will save us" and it did finally today. Today I went to Costco and I found just the clothes Little T needs. Hooray! I also bought Special K a plush tiger costume for Halloween.

At his OT apt, his Occupational Therapist said that she felt that Little T should be evaluated by a speech therapist. Oddly I had just stopped worrying about his speech development. He's apparently still delayed. He's supposed to say 1-3 words and maybe he says "Hi" but it's kinda a stretch. However I was worried when all he said was "gah". Now he actually babbles and he babbles all the time. I think he will start talking soon. But I think he's more interested in figuring how to move about better first. Already he's improved his scooting technique. I see him trying to pull up on things, but not actually doing it.

His OT says he may have some motor planning deficiencies and it's different for oral-motor than for gross motor. It's clear from his PH probe Houdini act that he has no difficulties in gross and fine motor planning. I just think he hasn't quite figured out the advantages of talking.

When Special K was 11 months old, she had a great breakthrough in communication. At that point, she said "mama", "dada" and "meh", which was milk. We went to an art gallery and Special K pointed to some food and said "meh". Then we went to the grocery story and she pointed to some food there and said "meh". After that her vocabulary and her talking took off. Little T says "Hi" to get our attention and to be cute, but he definitely doesn't seem to realise that he himself can communicate with us.

Maybe it has to do with being mobile and saying no. I told our OT that Little T got told "no" very little until last week. The only reason we told him no was when he pulled his sister's hair. So he doesn't even really understand no. When a child isn't mobile, there's no real reason to tell him no most of the time. I talk to him all the time, but I guess he doesn't need to understand what I say. But now sometimes he must understand what I say. "No climbing on the stereo." "No eating cat food." This is turning into a sad theory of child development. What do you think?

Evening out

C and I went to Bambuddha Lounge in SF last night. It describes itself as a "hot spot" which usually means it's too cool for us. It serves fusion Asian cuisine, but it was delicious. And it had an amusing mixture of forced retro and Asian stuff that I think of as SF culture. Outside was a drive-in motel which was still painted in the retro 70's colours, but had fresh paint and electronic doors. Arranged outside were funky sculptures and a bamboo garden with black and bright colours. We didn't sit outside, because it was a bit chilly and we also didn't have dyed hair.

I didn't dye my hair in my youth. I never regretted the decision, because I'd have to bleach my hair to do it and I wouldn't want to abuse my hair that much. BTW the only colour I'd want would be purple. I'm still deciding if I want to dye my hair now that I'm older and it's turning white. It's a nice silver white, so I feel lucky.

There was a live DJ, but no-one was in the DJ area. Some Asians lounged outside wearing Mardi gras beads with cups. A few with purple and red hair. They all looked cool and cold.

We had the fastest service we've had in a while before an opera, so we made in plenty of time before Girl From Algiers started. In many ways, the opera seems similar to the restaurant with a silly fusion of cultures. It's a silly opera, though unlike the restaurant it has an underlying seriousness and patriotism. I thought William Burden as Lindero was particularly touching. I was a little annoyed, because even though we have season tickets, we got the second billing stars for this opera: Isabella and Mustafa. And I found Isabella to be second rate. C found her funny, but I found her voice to have a slight burr in it, which grated on me. Mustafa had great antics, but his voice wasn't as robust as I would expect for the part.

However the set was wonderful with a great 20's storybook Indiana Jones feel with some good playacting to counterbalance the repetition of the silly phrases. Sometimes particularly SF opera goes overboard with the playacting, and you miss the words of the opera, but I think this production had the right balance. They let the singer sing the phrase the first couple of times and then start buffooning.

Actually William Burden transported me. Sometimes I think to myself, going to the opera is such a PITA. It's expensive. It costs a lot of time and money. Sure I get to go out with C, but I could walk with C to a restaurant downtown. But when I listened to William Burden singing about missing his love, I was transported back to a time when I missed my long distance loves. Okay it was better than that since they were never perfect operatic lovers. So we had a wonderful evening. Unfortunately the opera was almost 3 hours long, so I was too tired to drop by my brother's birthday party. But I did think of my brother while I was at the Bambuddha Lounge. Because he would have enjoyed the place.

Mysteries of growing and mobility

Special K has sudddenly grown again. First I noticed that she was a head taller than her two friends at gym. Then I noticed her pants that used to brush the tops of her sandals are now above her ankles. Also the sandles I bought her at the beginning of the summmer are a little snug. Special K seems mystified too as she keeps putting on clothes that are too small for her. When I was a kid, I used to grow without my noticing. In fact I'm not quite sure how I grew from 5'5 to 5'8.

C and I went to our first opera of the season The Girl from Algiers. I have more to say on our evening, but I now have a completely mobile baby. Oh, my! As I was typing this, Little T managed to scoot on his little butt all the way over to the bathroom. I'm so excited for our kids to reach each milestone and then afterwards I remember what a pain it is to deal with.

Shakespeare meme

Taken from theferrett, post a Shakespeare quote in your blog. "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool".

Vertigo, stress and children's picture book

Since taking Topamax, I haven't had vertigo for days. But today I have vertigo and nausea. Joy. I guess I do have migraines or something and it's related to my cycle. I think I'm stressed. Or rather things are going better, so my body is no longer bathed in stress hormones, so it feels worse. I hope that makes sense. I'm not sure how seriously to take my symptoms.

But I feel I must take a moment to pay proper homage to my poor body, which took horrendous abuse almost a year ago. I literally couldn't walk for over six weeks after somehow pushing Little T out. I think it's a minor miracle that I've somehow emerged relatively unscathed. So I veer between not wanting to whine and wanting to make sure that I'm not in fact missing something lurking. When my OB did the ultrasound of my uterus, she mentioned there was fluid under my intestines that might be uncomfortable. Whatever the hell that means. I forgot about it until now.

I also realised that I'm not as good as I thought at identifying when I'm stressed, so I'm writing some of the less obvious signs here

• Forgetting important things like Little T's numerous apts
  
• Feeling doomed
• Crying about "touching moments" on tv for people I don't even care about
  
• Getting frustrated with Special K about things she does all the time like dawdle
  

This too shall pass, I keep telling myself. I get more Buddhist as I get older. The idea of impermanence. I can't hold onto anything.

And so I write. I started writing another children's picture book. I never saw myself as children's picture book writer, but I heard about this contest. I had another idea, so I'm writing another children's picture book. I'm still waiting to hear about my first one.

It turns out this publisher is also a potential publisher for my first book, so that's a good thing if the publisher I submitted the manuscript to doesn't work out. I should have submitted a query letter instead. Ahh, well. Live and learn. I feel I've already learned a lot so far. I'm sure I have a lot more to learn. What an adventure life is!

Library class, poo, and the ups and downs of motherhood

I took Special K to a class at the library yesterday and it was a bust. She got bored, and wouldn't do anything except sit on my lap. I was feeling a bit bad at her lack of interest until I realised she was bored.

The class is for three-year olds which covers a broad range of abilities. Special K is an "older three", because her birthday is in late April. So she already knows her letters, colours, numbers and parts of the body. The class just covers these concepts. I was feeling pretty pleased that she knows these concepts and was about to blog about it when I heard Little T crying.

He had pooed and managed to smear poo across our white carpet, his clothes and his left hand. Pretty good for someone who can't even really use his left hand. Ahh, the joys of having a mobile baby. But when I opened his diaper, I discovered an unexpected delight. And I mean this sincerely. His poo was mostly yellow. For a few months, his poo resembled this green sludge like you might find at the bottom of a cesspool. Not sure if it was due to the antibiotics, Prilosec, or what, but it was not normal. Finally it's starting to approach normal.

Oprah had a show about health in which a prominent doctor said to inspect your poo every day as an indicator of health. In Little T's case, I think his poo is an indicator of health. And actually many people who have babies watch their babies' poo carefully for this reason.

For adults, your poo should come out in big pieces (3 or more inches long), be an S-shape, or you need more water and/or fiber in your diet. You should also poo at least once a day.

I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi

I just took another silly sci fi quiz and ended up as Obi-Wan Kenobi. The last time I took a Sci-fi character quiz, I ended up as Yoda. I'm not even a big Star Wars fan anymore. I haven't watched the last two Star Wars films, though I did dress as Princess Leia for Halloween in my youth. If it amuses you, feel free to speculate why I keep coming up as a Jedi knight in silly scifi quizzes.

Little T is off all meds and he can eat

For the first time since he was born a year ago, Little T is off all medications and even supplements! He was even taken off Poly-vi-sol yesterday. I'm so proud of him.

Perhaps related, since we took him off Prilosec, he suddenly started eating solid foods like a normal 1 year old. He grabs little bits of food and puts them into his mouth, then he takes a small bite and swallows it. He pulls out the food, then starts over again. He doesn't gag or throw up anymore. He hasn't thrown up once since we stopped Prilosec. Well except when Special K climbed into his crib and gave him a plastic letter which he tried to eat.

He still eats very little, but we're all just stunned. Just three weeks ago, we thought he'd still need months of feeding therapy. After a couple months of therapy, he could put a Cheerio in his mouth and mash it down, but when he tried to swallow it, he'd gag and then vomit. Now he can eat bits of chicken, strawberry, whatever he can lay his hands on. He swallows it down and it stays down.

And I just realised he has a pincer grasp. How exciting!

Email, meme and blog synchronicity

Owlmoose has a meme about posting a poem in your journal and Cindy a friend from high school sent me email asking me if I'd read One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. So I read the poem just now. The poem begins with losing little things, which I blogged about on Sunday. I hate it and find troubling more than I'd like. Therefore the poem didn't quite resonate with me. Since it was predicated on losing things to be commonplace and untroubling. But still I enjoyed reading it. And I enjoyed the synchronicity of three.