It finally happened. My child brought me a real live bug. It was a HUGE roly poly, with big fat creepy crawly legs. I did my very best to act cool about it, lol.

I am making up a blogging prompt, because I feel like it! One year ago, on this date, this is what I wrote in my real life journal:

8 months? Seriously? I just don’t know how some people have the balls! I was sitting in the doctor’s office with Dylan, waiting, and this woman, mother, asks, “How old is he?” and then before I can answer, she blurts out, “8 months.” Not even a question, but a statement! Then I say, “No, 14 months.” And she has the balls to say, “Oh, he’s little.”

First of all, my kid may be skinny, but he is AVERAGE height for his age, NOT small. And how often do you see an 8 month old standing on his own, walking very independently? I think there is an obvious difference between and 8 and 14 month-old. Seriously! *rolls eyes*

LOL, that’s me having a very obvious hissy-fit. I should have shared that then. How funny

I almost forgot there was a reason we don’t go to the park. He was the worst little boy EVER! He was playing so nicely, and he played for about an hour, which is plenty long enough, I think.

Then it was lunch time - past lunch time actually - and I was hungry and he must have been starving. I even warned him ahead of time, “We’re going home soon to have lunch…”

And then when it’s time to get in his stroller, he explodes! Horrible, back-arching, stiff as a board, whipping his cup of juice across the playground, murderous screaming tantrum as I try to get him in his stroller (and he’s stronger than me, I swear!). The little girl he was playing with just sat there quietly, contently in her stroller, drank her cup of juice, and watched him freak out. And the mom says, “Oh, I guess he likes the park.”

Yeah, I freaking guess so!

He’s not going to the park EVER again! Not until he’s twelve! And if he ever wants to ask why, I’m going to make him read this post!

Dylan, sitting on the ground, mud streaks on his cheeks like war paint. I say, “We are going in the house right now if you don’t stop eating that dirt!”

My child plays with his trucks and tries to make a “vroom” noise, but instead ends up sounding like the “grrr” of a monster. It’s funny

I don’t know how he ended up being such a boy - trucks, cars, tractors, airplanes, digging in the mud, bugs! Oh the bugs! There must be something to cultural gender stereotypes, because I swear we had nothing to do with this. We’re computer nerds, people!

not a writer:

novel stats:
52,500 wds.
159 pages
ch. 5 of 13

Chapter five is coming along. Chapter five is a boy chapter - well, he’s not a boy, but a young man I guess. And it’s really fun to try to dig into a male mind, imagine how on earth one manages to get pee on the rim of the toilet, especially when you’ve been doing it for twenty-something years, lol. And what, exactly, is the fascination with lesbians to a man anyway? Considering the fact that they have no interest in men! Hubby is probably sick of all the questions I’m asking him.

These next few chapters are the part of the book I’m nervous about writing – where people are going to be mad, but I don’t want it to turn into a soap opera. Where people will be sad, but I don’t want anyone crying, “oh, pity me!” Where people make mistakes (and I have to let them!), and deal with the consequences. Eeek!

I guess if I end up turning it into melodrama, I can always try again. That’s why we have second drafts, right?

Chair graphic is gone! Colors changed! You really have no idea how proud I am, simply of the task of having not broken the damn thing in the process

My child keeps bringing me sock lint off the floor and saying “bug.” One of these days he’s going to bring me an actual bug and I’m going to freak out.

not a writer:

novel stats:
49,100 wds
150 pages
working on chapter 5 of 13

That’s a freaking lot of words for not even 5 full chapters, with 8 more to go. Crap! What, do I think I’m John Irving or something??? I do know there will be some skinnier chapters coming up, but man! I’m going to have some cutting to do.

Had a conversation with hubby this week that unraveled another huge thread in my novel – about how you grow up with this image of your parents and who they were, whether that is good or bad – and then upon becoming an adult, you start to see them through entirely different eyes. Were the horrible things they did really so horrible, or are they redeemable? And you find out other things about them, less than noble things, secrets they kept from you and mistakes they might have made, things you didn’t know they were even capable of doing, or might have done, that causes you to think about them as entirely different people.

And what does this mean of your childhood memories then? Does it make them less valid?

And crap, I’m a parent now. I can’t help but wonder in what ways I will inevitably fuck up my own child. Because everyone does it. It cannot be avoided. I’ll leave you with that happy thought, lol